She's Krafty

I've been singing that song (by the Beastie Boys-I think) since Tuesday when I read what the color combo challenge at SCS was-Kraft Black Roses. On Friday I finally got to it. Since I joined in on all the Unity Hip Hop fun (and placed a small order. bad, bad, me-I know!) I felt inspired to pull out the Grove and piece those trees with some Kraft and Rose Red dsp. I grounded the trees with a strip of rose red polka dot paper (retired prints pack from last catty) punched with the scallop edge punch. I tied up some black and rose red grosgrain to glam it up and add some texture. The Birthday sentiment is from On Your Birthday! If you love kraft, you should try this combo. Hey, even if you think you don't like Kraft, give it a go. You may just surprise yourself! Hugs,

Beate's Weekend Sketch...

I got to it today. Can you believe that? I needed a birthday card for Ryan to take to a friend's birthday party tomorrow. I love making cards for my kids to take to their friend's parties, BUT I like to keep them super simple. I know they just get trashed in the aftermath and what 5 yr. old ever pays attention to the card? I used the Party Hearty set (hey, I posted last Friday with that set too) and used the same color combo again. I think Pacific Point, Kiwi, and Tangerine make a great fun, festive color combo. As you can see this card is pretty plain jane, but it is still cute! This is a large card, 8 1/2 x 4 1/4. It will fit in a business size envelope! Stop by Beate's blog to see the sketch. Happy Friday! Hugs,

A Sketch Challenge...

Another quick post today, DH already thinks I've been on the computer too long. Plus my little guy wants to go outside with the BIG guys. He is into pulling on my shirt till he gets what he wants. Here is my submission for this week's card sketch over at SCS. Check out the thread to see what everyone has done. I thought it was a great way to show off more of the fun dsp I bought. This one shows two different patterns from the Kiwi Kiss Patterns dsp. I was going to go with a monochromatic look, but decided to throw in some pink pirouettte. I used the striped ribbon to hide the seam of the two papers. To jazz it up a bit, I added some of the sea beads (is that what those are called?) from my green bead duo. Love how they looked in orange with the card we did at Convention so I tried it again here. Here's a close up of the detail. Thanks for stopping by. Hugs,

Lisa

Autumn is for the Birds-Unity Style

So the Unity stamp company is all about this Hip Hop thing. The DT does the Hip Hop (basically a blog hop) on Thursdays with lots of prizes given away but the gung-ho Unity groupies ( I say that in the most affectionately way) wanted to start their own blog Hip Hop on Wednesday. So today there was a challenge posted-CASE a DT member. I chose to case this card from Amber. My card is pretty basic, I changed the color combo to match the Haiku dsp. I flipped my scalloped edge added ribbon and put my sentiment in the wide oval punch and accented that with a prima flower and a brad I found in my stash. It was from the Target $1 bin last year and I thought the acorn matched the acorns on the branch. Here is the thread in the Unity forum if you are interested in reading about today's challenge! Hugs,

I feel so loved!

I got this award again, and I really feel special now! Thanks so much for nominating me, Kris! Check out her amazing blog! Like I said before, please feel free to pass this on to someone who you think in worthy. There are so many amazing blogs out there-I think everyone should have this award. I am just blessed by the love I feel from everyone in this community. I truly think some of the nicest, most generous people out there are stampers! Hopefully I'll be back later with some new stuff I get to work on during nap time this afternoon. Happy Hump Day!
Hugs,

Urban Garden

Today I guess you can see I'm showcasing the Urban Garden dsp. I love, love love the colors in the pack! Oh and the prints too, they are gorgeous!!! I was working on swap designs and these were a few other cards I came up with. Yes, I am teasing you girls again with the actual card-for that you'll have to wait! This first one has turned out to be a favorite of mine. I was inspired by Beate's weekend sketch challenge. Did you know she has returned from her blogcation? Yeah! Check out this sketch and give it a try. I say I was inspired by her sketch because as you can see, I didn't follow it exactly (having the computer upstairs and wanting to use my wide oval punch contributed to the deviation). The card is a 4 1/4 square card. I used the cherry blossom image from Embrace life for my background and then let the dsp take center stage. I stamped my favorite sentiment on kiwi cs and punched that off with my wide oval punch. I accented the card with striped kiwi grosgrain ribbon and a baja felt flower from the Flower Fusion too kit. I had to use one of my filigree brads (they are an amazing accent, but I am feeling the need to hoard them). This second card uses many of the same elements and all the same colors. I left off the large circle and went with scallop edge punch to show off the dsp this time. I used the Inspired by Nature set in the background and stamped the sentiment on a piece of the dsp, bringing in another subtle pattern. I hope you love the colors as much as I do. If you don't' have the dsp pack yet, still go for a similar look just use the colors. Hope your week is starting out great! Mine is. As much as I hate getting up early, I feel good getting up and being able to walk and shower all by 9am thanks to our new school schedule! Hugs,

PTI Blog HOP!

Wow! It has been awhile since I participated in one of these. I was hopping around my blog roll this morning and came across the deets on this months Blog Hop. Right away I was inspired, since 3-D items are what I often shy away from. I have lots of great ideas in my head but I never put them into action. This challenge was just what I needed. So what is the challenge you ask?

Just about any paper crafter you meet will let you know how much they love to alter regular household items they already have in their home. This month's Blog Hop Challenge is to alter a CD case into something other than it's original purpose. You can use some of the new CD Calender Cases we have just begun to carry or a standard version that you recycle from your old music stash. You can take it apart, add additional pieces to it, cut it, punch it, stamp it, heat it & bend it. You can have it hold something, display, contain, carry or collect anything! The sky's the limit! We look forward to seeing all of your ideas!

So there it is. Are you up for the challenge? Want to see what I did with this? Okay, here it is. I kept it simple and used the empty CD case as a picture frame. It sits open like a little tent. I mounted the picture onto choc. chip cs and then created my own fun background paper with the PTI, Polka Basics set. One of my favorite sentiments from PTI is from the GreenThumb set, "May the simple joys in life be yours." These are my simple joys-my three beautiful, healthy boys (okay, so they aren't all that simple, but a lot of the things they do are simple and that gives me sheer joy!). I accented the frame with a little Summer Sunrise twill ribbon and even stamped on the top piece to carry out the polka dot theme. What I love most about this frame is that I can change out the picture any time I want to. It slides out, just like a CD jacket would. Here is another view of the frame without all the glare. It was hard to get a decent picture while it was standing up so I closed it here and laid it flat so you could see just how cute my little guys are. I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with. I know there will be lots of great ideas out there. Hugs,

More Die Cuts

Like I said in a post the other day, I like to use all my new stuff at least once before I dive into any time committed work. I quickly saw a sample of this die used at convention and I loved how it looked all cut out. I can't wait to use it on a scrapbook page as a boarder strip. Here is the strip in it's full glory. Isn't it so cool?! I love all the swirly letters. Since I wasn't' ready to use it on a scrapbook page yet, I wanted to see how it would work on a card. I cut apart the words Joy and Love (keeping those two actually attached) and then came up with this card. It is a little cutsie for my taste but I figured I'd show you anyway. The hearts are from Priceless and I embossed two of them with white embossing powder and then cut them out. The polka dot dsp is Kraft Patterns from the hostess sampler pack. I love this color choice, I only wish it were available in 12x12 size. I used the scallop edge punch along the bottom and finished it off with a Kraft taffeta bow. Happy Monday!

Washington Apple

oooo, I love these colors and the patterns in this dsp paper pack! I designed one of my swap cards with this paper and after I had that task completed I rewarded myself and played a little bit more with the paper. I came up with these two cards. The first one was for a challenge over at Limelight. Mandy came up with this sketch and then we were challenged to use stickers or rub-ons to make a quick and easy card. My friend Becky is on their DT and this card of hers helped inspire this challenge. I love how mine turned out and yes it was super quick. Plus it was a great way to show off different pattern from the dsp pack. The next card came from me just playing with my new dies that came with my Big Shot starter kit. The bird and flowers are from the Bird and Blooms Sizzlits Die. I punched out some cirlces with my 1 inch and 3/4 inch circle punches to mix up the centers of the flowers. I also added a beautiful new button from the Button Bouquet. The only stamping on this card was the sentiment from On Your Birthday stamp set. The inside of the card is finished off with the rest of the birthday greeting, "wishing you the happiest Birthday yet!" I think this one is my favorite. I love how the little wing of the birdie pops up, like he is ready for flight. Have a wonderful day! Hugs,

Merging of the Holidays...

On this post anyway. Here are two pages I did last week while I was waiting for my order. I was waiting on the ribbon to add to them so now they are complete! I am officially done with Halloween and I've now moved on to Christmas 2007. Once I finish the swaps I'm working on I'll dive into that fabulous new Christmas scrappin' Kit and finish off the year!! I always have a ton of pictures from our pumpkin carving night and I always struggle with how to make them work on a single page layout (I know, I should just spread them out and do 2 pages, but by the time I am at this point in my album I am busting at the seams so I try to condense when I can). I found a similar layout in my Scraps Ect. magazine and made it work for my pictures. The title was done with a retired alphabet, newsprint.

This Christmas page is a layout I was actually trying to make work for a contest entry in the new 8 1/2 inch size chipboard album SU is carrying, but there was just something about it that wasn't right. I just didn't feel it was contest material, but it definitely works in my album. I added a few more pictures to my page and made it into a 12x12 layout. The trees are all sparkly. I used the Season of Joy stamp set to accent this page. This page shows our annual Christmas Eve day event-a visit to Holiday Junction at the Cincinnati Museum Center. It is a huge train display and the boys just adore it. There is even a train they can take a ride on. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend! I'll have swap cards to share soon since that is my project for this weekend. Hugs,

I'm Soooo Excited!!

Remember this post about the contest I entered to become a guest designer on the Stamp Something blog? I didn't win, but that's okay because I (along with the other entries) was asked to be a Guest Designer for this weeks challenge while the regular DT gets a week off. It's a nice easy, and fun theme this week-Birthdays! Iknew what I wanted to do with this challenge as soon as Denise emailed me about it, but I had to wait for my order to come in. I was starting to sweat it, but as you know it arrived just in the nick of time. So right after I tore into my boxes and ran two die through the Big Shot, I had to run downstairs and put this card together. I was praying it would go together just like I had it in my head and sure enough it did! So you look at the outside of the card and think, okay, cute but nothing special, well it is the inside of the card that packs the punch! We saw the cutest card demo'd like this at Convention and everyone just Ooo'd and Ahhh'd! I had to give it a go and let me tell you it is so easy to do. The spirals are just circles that are fist punched out and then you cut around the circle till you have no more cs left to cut (you are cutting an outline so-to-speak of the circle.) If I get a chance I'll try to get a quick little tutorial up just so you can see (I'm a visual learner) how it is done. Then you just stamp and cut out little images to stick to different parts of the spiral you created. I used my new Party Hearty stamp set for this along with the vibrant and fun Pacific Point, Kiwi Kiss and Tangerine Tango color combo.
ETA: oops, I am a day early. Guess you get a sneak peek at tomorrow's Stamp Something Challenge. Just shows how excited I really am about this!

Hugs,

Haik-whooo!

I couldn't stand it, I just had to post this cute little card. It literally came together in 7 minutes. I didn't have much time (although, looks like I get a few more minutes now since the two younger ones are both still asleep) because I had to take Joshua to his Open House at school. I'll keep this brief since this is the second post for today!

I just love these little guys! I paired them up with the Haiku paper (I've been dreaming about that title for a week now) and some new Tangerine Tango ribbon. The scallop strip and square are two of our new punches. I love that the 1 1/4 inch. plain square punch fits nicely inside the scallop square showing just enough scallops. Thanks for looking! I've got exciting news to share tomorrow, check back! Hugs,

It's here It's here!

Okay, so normally I would never do this but since I have been talking about my BIG order for so long now and anticipating it's arrival I thought I'd continue to share my excitement over it. Plus, I'm proud of the fact that half my stuff was earned for FREE. I got all four boxes together, on the same day!!! Yippee for Mr. Brown. Two of those orders/boxes weren't due for delivery until today, Wednesday. Here is the stack! I then tore into the boxes and here is a shot of the GOODS. Isn't everything so Yummy?!!

Next is the new Big Shot, starter Kit that I ordered and boy is there a lot included! Everything you need to get started. If you make it to my class you'll get to use this baby!
And here are the first cuts I made with the Big Shot. I used the Bigz Dies (Top Note and Scalloped envelope) to create these two fun elements. I seriously was like a little kid and was excitedly looking around for something to cut. I used a piece of cardboard from the packaging of the die(did you know the Big Shot can cut through 50-some different types of material?). It is like chipboard, so I thought, why not?!

I then grabbed a piece of scrap dsp I had near by (I've been working on a little gift for someone using the retired, Linen prints dsp) and I cut out that cute little scalloped envelope. I just love it. By the time I finished opening the boxes and putting the Big Shot to use my fun had to end. Tim came home with the boys (they were at the pool) and the baby woke up from his nap. I put my stamps together (and I can't tell you how HAPPY I am with the new sets all being die cut-yippee!!! such a time saver) last night while watching some of the Olympics. We were actually watching recorded events from the night before. Anyone else think the tie-breaking rule for gymnastics is ridiculous? Poor Nastia, she deserved that GOLD, too!
Enjoy your day! I hope to be back later with a little eye candy of a project or two.

Hugs,

Sweet Adela-gave me an award

One of my swapping sisters from NMBS gave me an award yesterday. Thanks, Adela. I am grateful and honored for the award (love Adela's blog too.check it out!), but I am so bad about sending these things on. I also honestly think I could not narrow it down to 7. Seriously, I check at least 15-20 blogs daily, not to mention all the other side blurfs I do by clicking on a link here and there. Here are the rules: I have to pick 7 of my favorite blogs and…

1. The winner can put the logo on their blog
2. Link the person you received your award from
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls or boys you’ve nominated.

So if you are reading my blog, consider yourself nominated and go ahead and pass this wonderful award on to someone you love! I'll be back later with a picture of my goodies-Today is the day!!! and the good news for me is all of my boxes look to be arriving all together (they were supposed to be coming over the next three days!). I had to split my order into three different ones due to my contest winnings, my product bonus for signing another recruit (see membership pays!) and my own personal order. Today will be a great day and my DH is finally not working today (he has worked 8 out of the last 10 days and I feel like I haven't seen Tim in weeks). I hope we do something fun together as a family, as long as we are home by 2 for the UPS man. hehehe.

Hugs, Lisa

I'm making my way out of 2007!

I feel like I've been saying that for months, and my pictures from last year just seem never ending. I did 5 more scrapbook pages the other day. Two of them are the only ones that are fully completed (the others are waiting on some ribbon that will be here later today!) I now have Halloween and Leaf Raking under my belt. The Halloween page used the fun color combo of Kiwi, Pumpkin, and Basic Black. My dear friend and neighbor Tanya (one of my stamping buddies that lives around the corner from me) let me barrow her Well Worn Alphabet. This is a perfect alpha set for Halloween pages. I also added some images from Booglie Eyes (retired) along the left side of the photos. They were stamped in white on the Kiwi cs. I tried something I've always wanted to try with my journaling. I number the pictures and listed them on my journaling block. This probably would have been more effective is there were more photos, but I do like how it turned out. I added a little black & white gingham for accent. This second page is celebrating our annual leaf raking day out at the lake. We also took our Christmas picture of the boys this day. There are SOOOOOO many leaves out there. As much fun as we have raking them and piling them up, it is just a lot of work so this fall we are going to hire out the job. I'm sure we'll just go out there to play in them once before our yard guy takes them away. Back to this page...the title is Work and Play and I framed it with a scalloped chipboard frame that is covered with some Fall Flowers paper (retired). My favorite picture is the top left one, I got a great action shot of the boys throwing the leaves around. My next favorite picture is the one of Tim holding Nicholas all wrapped up in his jacket. The baby hated the leaves (you should see the close up of his face in the bottom picture). He was much happier snuggling up close to me and Tim. I accented the page with cut out leaves of another set Tanya loaned me, Autumn Fest (also retired). Now all I have left is Christmas and I'm hoping to knock those out with the new Christmas Scrappin' Kit that is coming in my order TODAY! After I finish off my new catty swaps (I'm in three groups) my mission is to be done with 2007!

Introducing Eastern Blooms

I know I already showed you this set, but on Thursday I had a chance to put it to work. I was surfing blogs and after seeing Joanne Basile's and Angie Tieman's blogs I was inspired to use this beautiful set. Don't just stop at these particular posts, their blogs are full of beautiful and inspiring works.

The colors are way off on this card, but I wanted to share it with you anyway. It is a cute little 3x3 card and I made a bunch of these using Kiwi, Riding Hood Red, and Tangerine Tango as the base. This one is the Kiwi card. All three are the same design with Choc. Chip. I will change the ribbon on the other two cards once I receive my order (It's on its way-next Tuesday and Wednesday will be happy mail day. I hope I don't freak out the UPS man as I attack him in the drive way, lol!). The sentiment is from Flight of the Butterfly. I thought these will be perfect little thank-you notes to include in orders this fall. So if you want one of these cards, place an order with me! This next one was again inspired by the Bella Rose dsp. I didn't order any of it but I love the colors in the pack. It is beautiful. The cool thing about this set is how well it coordinates with Embrace Life set. I love the sentiment in that set so I used it here. Other than that, this card is pretty straight forward. I added a little glitter to the center of the flowers (not sure you can tell from the photo) it was just the right touch to the card. As you can tell I was on a Riding Hood Red and Choc. chip kick so the third card uses those two colors along with Kiwi and Tangerine Tango. I thought it made for a nice fall color combo. I used markers on this card and since the In Colors aren't available in markers I used my Blender pen (note to self, get new blender pens. Mine are like 6 years old. They still work but man are they dirty and the tips are pretty worn). I just picked up the Riding Hood Red, Kiwi, and Tango colors and colored the flowers directly on the stamp, added choc. chip marker to the branch, huffed and stamped. Again, I used the Embrace Life sentiment. I can finally stop hoarding my narrow choc. chip grosgrain ribbon because Thankfully SU brought it back, along with a few new colors-yippee! Hope you liked this little trio. Can't wait to see what you do with it if you order it. It really is a pretty set! Have a wonderful day! Hugs,

Two Challenges Completed

I spent the afternoon finishing a scrapbook page and then I made two quick cards for two challenges, one for each of my swap group blogs. This first one was posted by Kristin (kristin moore) for the GSG Blog. She challenged us to use metal in any form on our card. She made a beautiful Chocolate Chip and Copper card. I chose some more muted tones for mine. Yes, I used it again-Inspired by Nature. I love all the dsp in the catalog and as much as I would love to have it all it is just not in the budget. One way to achieve a similar look of the papers is to repeat the color combo. This one comes from the Green Tea dsp-Celery, Olive, and Baja blue. I created the layered look of the main panel very quickly by first inking up the grass stamp with baja ink and stamping off once before stamping. Next ink up the flower side and stamp. I then cleaned the stamps and used my versamark PEN to ink up the single larger cone flower. I stamped that and then embossed it with silver embossing powder. The main image is matted with olive cs and I rounded two of the corners. I added another metal element with the styled silver hph frame and used the Say it with Scallops greeting and punched that out with the 1 inch (fits this frame perfectly) to fit inside. I tied some olive twill ribbon through the top hole of the silver frame and secured it at the bottom with a brad. Thanks for the great challenge, Kristin!
The next one to show you is from the NMBS blog. Barbara gave us the challenge this week to create a card with the following elements : use a background stamp, use a punched piece as an accent, and then use any other ribbons or accessories you felt necessary. This color combo came from the Maine Blueberry dsp pack-Not quite Navy, Bashful Blue, and Old Olive. As you can see I used the polka dot background stamp on the olive piece of cs and I used the scallop circle ,1 1/4 and 1 3/8 circle punches as my accent piece. I love that little "hi" sentiment from the Say it With Scallops set! I also used my 1/4 inch circle punch to accent my not quite navy brads, just adds a little extra touch and helps tie together the colors. I love the CAS look of this card! I wasn't going to post today, but thought I'd share these with you anyway. Hope you all found time to do something you wanted to on such a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Hugs,

One More Cone Flower

This was the last of my frenzy of cards I made using this set. I think it is my favorite cards so far. I love my watercolor crayons, but truly only use them with an aqua painter. I brush the aqua painter directly onto the crayon to pick up the color and then I go to town coloring in line are stamps. This stamp is obviously not a line art stamps, so another cool technique with the crayons was used here. I misted the stamp with a little water first (I keep an empty Stampin' mist bottle filled with water) then colored directly on the stamp with the crayon. I mist again and then stamp onto watercolor paper. The colors blend so nicely and it creates this wonderful watercolored image. It really is a quick and easy technique to produces wonderful results. If you are a customer and reading this here is another sneak peek of a card we will do at my up coming Sept. 7 class! Hugs,