Birthday Banner

Friday was my Dad's 60th Birthday, we had a surprise party for him on Saturday.  I also had my Christmas Card Stamp a Stack on Saturday morning, right before the party :)  I'll show you those cards in the next couple of days.  Today's card however is another Pintrest inspired card....it might be time for another Pintrest week.....stay tuned!!!!!  This card is the inspiration for my card.  I love the banner and I love how even though I have bows and hearts it's still a masculine card. 

I used the Fitting Occasion stamp set, which works perfectly for this card.  Also the newsprint DSP is quickly becoming a favorite of mine!  If you haven't had a chance to use it I strongly encourage it!!!  This paper is great!!!  I used the star punch, I know it's retired but it just fit in so well.  I'll be back tomorrow with a couple of the cards from my class over the weekend. 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Hoppin' Halloween Style!

It's time for our monthly Ladybug INK. blog hop!!  This is a hop that contains the bloggers from our local Albuquerque group.  You'll make an endless circle through the blogs but if you ever get lost you can click the links at the bottom.  This months theme is Halloween!!!  You might remember this door hanger that I made a while back.  My upline, Amber, commented on my hanger and said that one of her customers made her a box similar to the door hanger.  Well after that the wheels in my head started to turn and I came up with this box.   

I took all the elements of door hanger to create this little 2x2 box.  I have the spider, the ghost and Frankenstein.  I also added one more element with the witch's hat on top of the box.

Sorry for the glare on this picture.  I have the pumpkin.  Making all these little elements on a much smaller scale was fun but I think I enjoy the larger scale one's a little better.  I think a 4x4 size box would be fun!

If I had another side, or perhaps on my next one instead of the witch's hat a mummy would be cute!  I'll be sure to share that.......if it gets made :)

Of course it's not Halloween without a few treats.  So what better to put in the box then a whole lot of chocolate!!!!  This is all I had on hand but this box is big enough to hold some mini candy bars or perhaps my favorite a stack of Ghiradelli chocolates!  I hope you enjoyed my sweet Halloween box.  Now it's time to hop over to Kim's blog.  I'm sure she'll have some great ideas for your Halloween crafting this year!

 

Here's a list of all the stops you'll make in case you get lost.

Kim Madrid

Nichole Gonzales Jaramillo

Kay Jantz

Liz Kay

Carmelita Wasson

Cassie Rogers

Ruth Norton You Are Here!!!

 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!!

Welcome Fall

I love the change of seasons, especially fall---though I could jump straight to spring and skip winter all together :)  But what I love most about fall is the change of leaves.  I pulled out an old stamp set for this one.  The Lovely As A Tree set has been in the catalog ever since I joined Su and that was almost 10 years ago!!!!!  It's my go to stamp set for masculine cards and I've been known to make quite a few Christmas cards with this set.  You'll probably see a few later this year too!  I saw this card on pintrest, here's the link to the creator.  I loved the look of it and I HAD to recreate it.  I JUST LOVE THIS CARD!!!!!  I love the DSP scraps used on this card. 

For the tree I colored it with my markers.  Coloring your stamps is easy and fun.  When mixing the colors like this make sure you start with your lightest color and work your way to the darker colors that way you don't muck up your colors lighter makers with the darker ink.  I used Old Olive, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso, More Mustard and a touch of Midnight Muse.  This card is so simple but so so stunning!!!  I used my color spritzer to add just a little spritz of Early Espresso. 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!

Scrap Map Challenge

It's challenge time again over at the My Digital Studio Blog!!!  Last week I didn't win (I haven't won yet-but I'm having a ton of fun!!!) but I did get an honorable mention so that was pretty cool.  Plus with all these challenges who knows maybe I'll get my scrapbooking done!  This weeks challenge is to use their scrap map to create a page.  I tried to stick pretty close to the scrap map, but the pictures I wanted to use didn't work in that layout so I 'scraped' the whole page and started again. 

This page I used 4 photo boxes (just like the scrap map) and grouped them together then filled them with my picture.  I love the look of this.  I have some rounded corners and I love that the picture is a funky shape.  I made my journaling round too, but kept it within the scrap map guidelines.  Everything else is pretty self explanatory.  It's a fun page don't you think?  If you like it, head to the MDS site and like and comment on my page.  This page is so much fun I just love it!!!!

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!

Bringing The Sparkle!

This picture was taken pretty quickly with a little girl at my feet so I didn't realize that part of the card wasn't photographed well.  The right side of the card is some extra sparkle from from the silver glitter paper.  It's glued on the inside of the card and the front of the card is trimmed a little shorter so that when the card is closed all the way the extra sparkle shines!!!  I hope you get the idea.  Otherwise there looks like there's a lot going on with this card but really it comes together fast and easy!  The snowflakes are all from one die, the banners are cut from a framelit.  So it's all very quick and easy!

I love how elegant and beautiful the snowflake is though.  The glitter paper just changes the look of it in an instant.  I love the vintage button on it and I finished it with a pearl, so pretty!!!!!  This post is a little late but I hope it's worth the wait!!! 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

It's Only Tuesday!

And I'm already behind!  No post this morning, I'm hoping to be back later this morning or early afternoon with a little something :)  Please check back!

On My Broom

Halloween is coming, I'm sure you're aware.  I used to not craft for Halloween at all.  I just never gave Halloween cards and I didn't have kids in school to take treats to.  However, times have changed and I've found myself crafting Halloween treats in September!  Halloween treats are fun and often a little out of the box creative which I love!!!!!  These witch broom sucker treats were so stinkin' cute I had to make them for a little bunco party I had last week. 

I saw on Tami White's blog how to do them and you will kick yourself for throwing out (or hopefully recycling) all that brown packing paper that came with your last order.  Yes indeed this is recycling on a whole new level!  I always knew SU wanted us to craft with that brown paper!  These little brooms couldn't be easier too.  All you need is a couple of circles cut out of the brown paper, cut slits in them almost to the center and poke your sucker through.  So CUTE!!!

Tami has a great video I encourage you to check it out on further details on how to make these little brooms.  In the video Tami uses the circle scissors plus to cut her circles.  Well that's probably one of the few things I don't have :) So I just found a bowl in my kitchen that was about 6 inches in diameter and traced that and cut them out.  This paper's pretty thin so you can cut a whole stack at once.  Have a great Monday!  I'm hoping to be back all week to show you fun stamping things, but I won't make any promises.  This week promises to be busy, busy and probably a little (A LOT!) crazy.  But I will do my best!

 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

No Room For Me

My desk has been taken over with my prep for one of my favorite classes of the year.  My Christmas Card Stamp a Stack is next week.  This class is always so big that it takes me weeks (no joke) to prep.  Normally I can prep a class in just a few days but my Christmas card class is a whole different story.  I love this class though, of all my classes this one is the best value and how great do you feel when you can complete 20 cards in just a couple hours!  But the only downside (and it's really not a big deal) is that I loose about 80% of my desk space.  Yes my messy, messy desk!  So as of last night when the prep took over my stamping mat I'm unable to stamp!  Not really I'll find a way :)  But anyway you didn't come here to hear me ramble on about my desk, you came to hear me ramble on about my projects!

 

Isn't this little can cute!?!  Here's the story on these little cans.  A few months ago at our demo meeting, my friend Mindy (who is moving and I'm so sad about) demoed these little cans.  Now I've seen them before I've even made some in the past.  But sometime you just need to be reminded of all those wonderful projects.  So she did that. I went out and bought a case full of little canned peaches and fruit for Logan and Megan.  We've been enjoying the fruit and I've been saving the cans.  Thinking I'll use them in a class someday.  Well about a month ago we decided to throw my Dad a surprise birthday party next week (don't worry I'm pretty sure my Dad doesn't check my blog).  The party favors are being made by yep me!  So I had plans for these cute little boxes with cupcakes on them and they were going to be super cute.  Then I got the number of how many favors I will need to make and quickly needed a plan B, knowing that I would not have time in a week to get the boxes done.  So the cans to the rescue!!!!  They're easy, fun and probably fit in better for a 'man's party' then my cute little boxes :)  So I wrapped each can in the Comfort Cafe DSP, wrapped it with ribbon and added some tags, that say sweet treat, just for you and thank you.  These cans are super simple to make the only thing you really need is a smooth edge can opener.  You open the cans from the bottom, and the smooth edge opener takes off the whole bottom part.  Fill it with you treats then use crystal effects to glue the bottom back on.  So fun right!!!

 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Mama Said....

This page just makes me laugh.  We all have those days where we feel like nothing is going our way.  When you're 6 it's the end of the world.  I'm not even sure why he was angry when this pictures were taken but he was mad, even more mad after I took a couple pictures  :)  This scrapbook page is my entry into this weeks challenge over at the MDS site.  Go check out my page and 'like' it while you're there it can't hurt my chances.  This weeks challenge was to use some of the September downloads.  Well I bought my fair share of downloads in September so I knew I had stuff to work with.  One of my favorite downloads is the frame.  It comes in a set of 5 or 6 fun, funky frames.  I loved them and I think I bought them instantly that day.  This frame is the grey one I changed to brown.  The background is also some of the new DSP in September it's from the It's a Wrap download.  It was Calypso Coral but that color really didn't go with the page but I love the patten so I color changed it to Crumb Cake.  Fun page huh.  Get out there and take some pictures that will make your children furious.  That's what we're here to do right!?!

 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Swaps From The Meeting

I recieved some pretty amazing swap--no surprise there-our group is full of amazing stampers!  Here's my swaps, our theme was ink techniques.  Enjoy!!!!

 

This is Amber's Swap.  Love the polished stone look with these colors!!! 

This is Carmelita's swap.  She found this technique on Splitcoast.  You can see the tutorial here.

This is Cassie's first swap.  She has a new recruit so she did 2.  I love these little birds!!!

Here's Cassies second swap.  Love the coloring she did on this one! 

This is Kay's swap.  You can't tell but it's full of sparkle!  Gotta love the sparkle!!!

This is LaRee's swap.  She used the brayer to create her background.  So pretty!!  And would you believe she hand drew in the grass!!!  That's serious talent!

This is Kim's card.  She may have convinced me to buy this set after her swap.  I love her coloring too!!

Told Ya I'd Be Back!

Here I am again for the 2nd post of the day.  This one will be a little more detailed on the technique.  We'll if you can call it a technique, but it is pretty cool looking huh?!  The post this morning showed you the tree version of the ribbon/framelit technique.  Here's where I first saw this done.  I loved this look and so I was so excited to do it myself!!!  And how cute are these little cards!!!  These would be so adorable to do a set of little 3x3 cards for a gift. 

To do this cut out your gingerbread man for example.  You can save the cut out, he's still a good gingerbread man, use him on another project or put him on the inside of this card!  Double the fun!  Now that you have the outline of your shape put adhesive, I used SNAIL, on the outside of the shape, then you just adhere scraps of ribbon down.  Seriously so easy and a great way to use all those scraps of ribbon you have.  Attach to your finished card and TA DA! Done!!!  So simple and so cute!!!!!  LOVE IT!!!!

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!

My Demo

This post is going to be short and sweet.  Short because I forgot to do this post ahead of time and I'm rapidly typing to get it done before I take Logan to school and sweet because, well isn't the card sweet!!!!  This was my demo last night at our meeting.  I used the framelits and cut out the tree then glued ribbon behind it.  Isn't that so sweet!  I didn't create this I saw it first on another blog.  I did a gingerbread man too.  But apparently didn't get pictures of him, not to worry he's somewhere in my bag.  I'll be back for a bonus post in a few hours with the gingerbread man and I'll link back to the blog of the original creator.  Have a good morning, see you later!!!!

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!

Watercolor Spray

Our demonstrator meeting is tonight.  I know what you're thinking--wait it is neither the end of the month or a Thursday.  We had to move our meeting a little this month :)  Not to worry I'm not loosing my mind.....I don't think anyway :)  This is my swap for the meeting tonight.  The theme is Ink Techniques.  That could be almost anything really.  I went with something that I love and that is so stinkin' easy.   Good for me too, since I didn't even start my swaps until the last minute, which is very unlike me.  I wanted to add the ribbon, why not right, but I didn't like my first two ways that I tied it so I added this knot and asked Logan which he liked better.  Well I guess you can see which one he choose.  He said it looked like a present. 

 

To get this watercolor look is super easy and you'll never watercolor the same way again.  I stamped the image in Staz On on watercolor paper (that's important) then colored it with my markers.  I used Gumball Green, Cherry Cobbler and just a tiny bit of Summer Starfruit in the center.  Then, here's the easy part, I sprayed it!  Gently spray a few mists of water (or in my case, because I'm a lazy stamper I used our stampin' mist cleaner-it was right there-don't judge me).  Water would also work.  Let your colors run if you've spritz too much water, just dab it with a paper towel to soak up some of the excess, let it dry.  If you're in a hurry you can speed up the drying process with the heat tool.  That's it, I told you it was easy!

 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!