Happy Bitthday Mrs. MFT!

It's a FUN day! It's Kim's birthday and we are celebrating in style. The MFT DT has planned a Blog Mobbing...kind of like a Flash Mob (soooo love those and really, would love to be a part of one some day!) but in crafty blogging, Facebook kind of way!

The coolest part is....ANY ONE can join!

If you'd like to join the celebration, we'd LOVE you to participate! You can add a card to the Splitcoast Galleries using the keyword "HBMFTLADY" or, if you're a Facebook lovin' girl you can add your project to the MFT Fan Facebook page! Not yet a fan of MFT on Facebook? You can "like" it here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/My-Favorite-Things-Just-Delightful-Clear-Stamps/364057405371
and add your post! Don't have time to stamp? Just stop by the MFT Facebook page and wish the MFT Lady a happy birthday. Let's MOB her on her special day!

I pulled out the fabulous First Place Award Ribbon set and die-namic and paired with Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch from last week and wha-la! DONE! Some Echo Park, For the Record paper and I think Kim's card is pretty rockin'!

A rockin' card for a rockin' awesome woman! I am blessed to be a part of the MFT family. Kim is so generous, and kind, and the bestest boss I've ever worked for! I hope one day I can actaully tell her these things IRL. Happy Birthday, Kim!

Okay...follow the mob, Megan is up next!

Hip Hoppin' on a Thursday


AND the last Thursday of June, I might add! I've got so much going on in the next 5 days and I'm sooo excited about it all! Today we kick it all off with the Unity Hip  Hop Thursday blog hop!  I am celebrating my 11th wedding anniversary (actually we celebrated on Wed. night since we will be apart for the first time on July 1 in 11 years..kinda weird....but we know we love each other!), I get a little girl time with a few of my high school besties thanks to a wedding (congrats, Erin!), and new Unity stamps are right around the corner, too! Then it's the 4th here in the US (Independence Day!) and hopefully we get a few days out at the lake....all we need is a little sunshine!

I hope you have big plans over the next few days, and if not big, I just hope that you find yourself doing something you love!

My card uses one of the new itty bitties just released by the Simple Stories Co-brand! I A.dore IT! 
GO. See. Do.   What a great mantra to follow....and the adorable polka dotted air plane....Yep. love that too! lol!

Angela's got the Unity deets of all the goings ons. Stop by the Unity Blog. 
Tomorrow you get to see a the new KOM, and then on the 5th......NEW ippity! See, told you there was LOTS going on.

Maria is up next! Check out what she did today!

WSC26-a Boy Birthday

Welcome to another week of the MFT Wed. Stamp Club. 

The sketch was a little girly for a boy card, but I went with it anyway. I was in NEED of a birthday card for a party my little guy was going to, and the sketch was sitting on my desk, so with the right papers and stamps (My GO-To little boy set-little loveosaurus-you guys love this one too! looks like it's out of stock. It'll be back soon...check out the other Claire Key sets.) I think it looks great.

I admit, I don't always spend a LOT of time adding fine details to pre-school birthday cards and I'm okay with it. Normally I would have pieced up the dino with a fun patter paper and colored his face with copics, but today I just stamped him on Gumdrop Green cs, and cut him out! 

That's the wonderful thing about a great sketch, the right papers, and a fabulous stamp....even when you leave off the extra fine details on your card (the 4yr. old will be tearing into this anyway, right?!!) it still looks great!
I added the sentiment to the the First Place Award Ribbon die-namic! Love those fishtail ribbon pieces!  Oh, yeah....the giant scallop circle is the open scallop doily and I added a few Stacking Stars die-namic pieces to complete the card.

Hop on over to Kim's Blog....she's got the line up of bloggers today. Then hop over to the MFT forum for all the fun. Enjoy the day!

Papertrey Posse....Trendy

I admit... I haven't been so active in the little Papertrey Ink blogger group, The Papertrey Posse,  I am a part of.  I try,  and like most things aside from my DT work with stamping, I go in spurts.  I am proud to be  a part of this group. It fun and motivating and I sure do a lot more stalking than I do talking with the group.

Since I had my Papertrey stamps out last week, I decided to jump into the June challenges....there is only a week left of June, sooooo, what better timing. It helped that my friend Becky did her challenge and that  gave me a gentle reminder. Anyway the challenge this month was to use something trendy. Thanks Cathy for the great challenge.
I used the new Animal Print impression plate....animal print always seems to be trendy! Must be if PTI put it out, lol! anyway I love it and used it as a unique backdrop for my pretty card. I'm convinced the zebra and leopard/cheetah print can be used on almost any type of card!

I am loving this combo-blueberry sky, enchanted evening, kraft and  New Leaf! Not my usual colors....but I'm diggin' them.

other PTI product:
Turning a New Leaf die
Turning a New Leaf stamp set
Signature greetings stamp set
beautiful blooms #3 die
Blueberry sky saddle stitched ribbon

Thanks for stopping by. Lots to do this week and lots to share.  I'm busy gearing up for the MFT teaser posts that start on Friday.  Tonight is  TCP release party! I'm hoping to make the fun!

Papertrey June Blog Hop Challenge

Yes, I said PTI, as in Papertrey ink! If you have been around here long enough you know I've loved this company from their beginnings. Now I just don't get the time I would like to play with them. Like I said the other day, that changed for me on Thursday. I made a point to put some of my new goodies to work.

 This month's Blog Hop theme was this inspiration photo.

The color on the wall just spoke to me, plus I wanted to try the copic background technique Nichole showed during her June sneek peeks. I'm not sure i did it justice, but I did enjoy working with the fun colors.

The colors I played up are Simply Chartruse, Melon Berry, and Aqua mist. they are all mounted up on a kraft card base to help tone them down. Can you see the fun zebra print on the melon berry square. LOVE that new Animal Prints impression plate. Stamp set is Hello, Friend.

I also recently got the super fun boy set, Game on. Now it has nothing to do with the inspiration phot, except that I used the same marker technique, just on a skinny strip of cs and in grey tones. I again, had to try out the animal print impression plate, this time Cheetah!

Thanks for stopping by! Join me to see all the wonderful PTI creations today!





The whole Layout....Simple Stories!

Love a Great reason to dig into my always

growing pile of pictures

and

ACTUALLY
get them onto a layout.

What better reason than
NEW STAMPS!

Untiy joined forces with

SIMPLE STORIES

and this is what I created with

Smarty Pants

and this itty bitty

Monthly Circle

LOVE these stamps.

Check out the SALE unity is running!

It's all good through Monday!

Also,
today is FWF!

LOTS of cool Unity projects to see!

PTI and a Make it Monday Challenge

Nothing like some new goodies to motivate me to use some of my Papertrey Ink products. I was on a roll today and ended up making 3 quick PTI cards. You'll see the other two on Blog Hop night.  I think it's been MONTHS and months since I have remembered to play along.

I also took full advantage of my new dies, turning a new leaf,  and used them for the Make It Monday technique-Reverse Masking.

I used the mask of the larger leaf  stem, to add some vintage cream polka dots and then sponged in around the edges to create the full leaf. I love the look of cream on kraft! I set that all up on an Enchanted Evening card base and accented with the Blueberry ribbon and ric rac. I threw in some lace, and a few buttons for good measure. Sentiment is from Signature Greetings and I did it up in Ripe Avocado.

a Teaser....and a Unity Release!!!!

Check out the Unity Blog today!

There is some

gooooood stuff

going on!

Unity is releasing TONS of stuff at CHA this year

and Angela is kicking off the fun early.

They joined forces once again

with another fabulous company

Simple Stories!

While I'm not part of HipHop today

(I'm with the other group)

I didn't want  you to miss out on any of the

exciting news and SALES!!!

I did do a layout....but I'm saving it for tomorrow.

here's a peek

(or you can check it out on the Unity blog

if you can't wait!)

Unity is marking 15 Kits down to $10 and under

 - AND for EVERY $10 you spend you get 1 FREE RANDOM stamp or sentiment from unity.

{that is the total before shipping and after discounts}

Example: Order total $34 - you get THREE free random stamps from UNITY! :)

Unity is ALSO marking down 5 PAST Kit of the months down to $26.

IF YOU ARE A KIT OF THE MONTH Member YOU

get 25% off your NEW RELEASE PURCHASE and Markdowns.

AND...You can sign up for the Kit of the Month

 and be provided with that discount code immediately. 

Happy Shopping! 

MFT WSC25-I am Blessed

 

I am blessed. In so many ways. I am so grateful for those blessings. I really love all the quotes from the new Clearly Sentimental about Friendship set. I inked the long sentiment separately so it would fit the circle from the sketch. I stayed true to the sketch this week.

We are in week 25 of our MFT WSC. We encourage you all to play along, and to enter your card in the weekly draw for a $15 gift voucher to the MFT Boutique. Simply follow the sketch and create a card or other paper creation. You may use any stamps and supplies that you wish. 

 All you need to do to enter, is upload your card to the gallery at SCS, and enter the given keyword in the keyword box, during the upload process. After the deadline, we randomly choose a winner from that week's entries and the winner will receive a $15 gift voucher. If the winning card uses MFT stamps, the participant will earn a $5 bonus, for a total of a $20 gift voucher!

I like to think I kept it simple and let the designer papers "make" the card. I cut another pretty posie from the wide twill and prettied it up with a leafy flourish and button!  Papers are by Cosmo Cricket from their Odds and Ends line. I used some Distress Dots for the Dainty Doily layer.

Kim's Blog has the list of inspiration for this week's sketch. Check it out!

Be an MFT VIP!

Welcome to our mid-month release. It's VIP time! Here's your chance to get the July Who's That Girl set 2 weeks early, AND pop a couple of new  à la modes in your cart, too.

Be sure you start at the beginning of our VIP BLOG HOP tonight so you don't miss out on any fabulous samples or any of the details about the release! That's at Kim's Blog!

This month our WTG is going under the sea....she's a mermaid and WOW! wait till you see the shimmer and shine!

The VIP kit  is a LIMITED QUANTITY product (NOT a one-day product - it will be available until it sells out).... SO ACT FAST!

Who's that Mermaid VIP Collection $31.90 and here's what you'll get......

• Who's that Mermaid stamp set
• Mermaid Sentiments mini (VIP exclusive stamp set - will never be offered for sale or be available again $9 value, FREE)
• Large Rolled Rose Die-namics Die

don't forget about the two new à la modes...make sure you pop those into your cart as well!

• You are Unrepeatable
• I've met my match

Did you see all the new, fabulous new glitter in the MFT Boutique? Mine is on it's way...so for my sample I used a little of what I had.  I think you saw lots of the new glitter along the hop.

This set is soooo cool! All the images are separate so each time you stamp her, you can create a different under the sea  scene. Not to mention the EXCLUSIVE mini set you get for FREE...that adds TONS more sentiment options! love that!

Check out that Large Rolled Rose! Yep, it's the perfect compliment to the rolled roses you hopefully already have in your collection. I also added some double scallops borders (reminded me of fish scales) and once again, couldn't resist the First Place Award Ribbon die-namic.
The sentiment just makes me giggle. I love how it reads!
Okay, so you've reached the end of the blog hop! Thanks for sticking with us tonight. All you have left to do is SHOP! So.....HERE YOU GO!

day two....à la mode sneak peek!

It's the second day of the MFT mid-month release, à la mode sneak peeks. You won't be able to resist today's cutie,either! The set is called You Are Unrepeatable.

I ♥ my ipod! I'm sure most of you do....it's "THE BIG GIFT" for our kids right now. My oldest got his own Nano for his birthday and now my middle guy is already asking for one for Christmas.

 I created a cute little pocket card (I used real denim to cut out the pocket) to hold an iTunes gift card, but couldn't find one in my house anywhere...so my Joshua says, "hey mom. My iPod fits in the pocket." AND.....that's what we used for this photo. I think it would be a great way to give the actual gift.

Either way...Pretty Pocket is a must have, it's just too cool! and so is this new à la mode. A couple other die-namics you'll spy are the new Film Strip and the medium simply scallops border.

The button is attached to a paper pieced flower from the Pretty Pocket set and the HB2U is from the You Are Unrepeatable set. I stamped it on the fishtail flag from First Place Award Ribbon set. Seriously LOVE those die-namics....you can cut it down to any size. Some Twine finishes it off!

Off you go. Check out Kim's blog to see who's all sharing peeks today!

à la modes - I've Met My Match

Over in My Favorite Things land we are quickly approaching our mid-month release. Tomorrow night our VIP kit will be up for sale along with 2 new super chic à la modes.  Here's a peek at the first cutie.  
Set your drink down.....take a seat for this one.... I don't want you to spill or fall down when you see just how stinkin' cute she is.

The set is called-I've Met My Match! I'm not even a tennis player and I adore her.

I stamped her on Copic x-press blending card stock with Momento ink and  colored her with copics.  I couldn't help by pile on the die-namics.... I always do, don't I??!!!

I used some of the extra wide twill ribbon to cut my pretty posies.

Do you have a ton of that size left over and feel like it is too wide to use on most cards?? It works great to cut with may of the MFT die-namics.  You might need to trim a few of the threads to release it from the actual die, but I love the rustic/home made feel of them. I even spritzed the smaller flower with some Glimmer mist to match my paper.  

I also used the new Leafy Flourish, a dainty dots border (in hot fudge!) and stamped the sentiment on half of the Textile Rectange die-namic. It's all mounted up on the dee-lish whip cream cardstock!

Kim has the line up of today's bloggers! Check it out! and I'll see you back here tomorrow for another sweet à la mode!



Hip Hoppin' with some Sweet Watermelon!

Hello again!

Happy Hip Hop!

Keeping it short and sweet today!

There is always lots to read and see on

Hip Hop Thursdays.

I'm starting to see LOTS of beautiful creations

in the Gallery with the June KOM...all smiles!

Glad you are lovin' it like I do.

Today I stamped the dee-lish watermelon.

colored with copics.

cut it out.

and added some Crystal Effects to the fruit.

It gives it a nice real-life look.

 If you get lost along the way...hop on back to the Unity blog

You should start there anyway....don't want to miss out on any announcements.

speaking of announcements....
Angela is running a Samantha Walker Sale!
$15 sale - ALL SAMANTHA WALKER KITS for sale only $15. 
Sale starts June 15th - and ends MONDAY MORNING 10 a.m. -
AND
 All purchases over $40 get a FREE ITTY BITTY stamp! $6.25 Retail Value.
It's THIS ONE
isn't that GREAT!

Maria is next!



Unity and Sun and Fun!

*** post no. 2 today!****

Please scroll down for my MFT WSC card!

It's the 15th of the month....

that means we've got another month-long challenge over on the

Unity challenge Blog.

This month, our theme is

Sun and Fun.

Take it and run with it.....

This is supposed to be fun, remember!

I put the A.Mazing

June KOM....all smiles

 to work again...

it is chuck full of FABBY

Summertime images.

I used the reverse print butterfly strips

(this layout was loosely based off last week's SCS sketch challenge)

and played up a HOT summer time color combo-

razzleberry, tangerine tango, and daffodil!

Check out the Unity Challenge Blog for all the details

and LOTS of inspiration!

The DT rocked it again!

Tomorrow's Hip Hop....see you back here, then.

WSC24-Love You Mower

Wow! Where is the week going??? Is it really Wednesday already?? I've had a busy week running the boys to and from basketball camp, giving extra snuggles to my little guy who has been running a fever with a sore throat, and cleaning my house like a mad woman! Feels good to be so productive.....and for me that also means I get to reward myself with stampy time! I work hard and fast, so I can play....guilt FREE! lol!

It's Wednesday, so that means it's time for My Favorite Things WSC.  We are on week 24 and here's what you have to work with this week.

 I flipped the doily and corner accent on mine to help fill the white space from the Who's That Guy set.

Lots of NEW and some older MFT goodies here today.....stay with me while I link them all.
Dainty Doily Duo die-namic
First Place Award Ribbon die-namic
I love you Mower stamp set
Fresh cut grass die-namic
Hearts a plenty die-namic

This one is going out to my hubby from me this Sunday....he's a great DAD and I do love him mower every day (well, maybe NOT every day....but he's definitely a keeper. LOL!). I think he'll also get a kick out of this since we are now in the market for a new push mower. Our 14yr. old one just died the other day. Unfortunately we are starting to see a trend here in our 14yr. old house....slowly things are giving out. YIKES!

Join the fun. We encourage you all to play along, and to enter your card in the weekly draw for a $15 gift voucher to the MFT Boutique. Simply follow the sketch and create a card or other paper creation. You may use any stamps and supplies that you wish. Each week, a keyword is assigned to the sketch. All you need to do to enter, is upload your card to the gallery at SCS, and enter the given keyword in the keyword box, during the upload process. After the deadline, we randomly choose a winner from that week's entries and the winner will receive a $15 gift voucher. If the winning card uses MFT stamps, the participant will earn a $5 bonus, for a total of a $20 gift voucher! 

Kim's got the line up of sketch inspiration for you! Check it out!

June Creative Challenge....Paint!

It's time for another group post from the MFT design team and show you what you can do with paint.

Mixed media is all the rage in paper crafting these days.  I really love the different effects you can create with paint.  Really, don't be intimidated by it....you can use it just like an ink pad. Lots of different ways to incorportae paint into your projects....watercolor paints, Luminare paints, and even acrylic paints.

Lately, this have been my prefence..... and all you need is some white acrylic paint and a paint brush (or foam brush)  to get started.  If you want to customize it....add a few drops of a re-inker to it.

For today's project I used:

Red Hot Cardstock

some news print designer paper

white aryclic paint

paint brush

and some MFT stamps-Inspired by Caged Birds, and Inspired by butterflies

I used a couple quick techniques to create some fun background. Here's a quick photo tutorial on how I did it.

 Step 1.
Use any piece of plastic to add a dollop of white acrylic paint. Here I had a baggie within easy reach. I just toss it when I'm done.

 Step2.
Use quick strokes with paint brush to add a pretty whitewashed background to your card base. Also paint over the news print paper, until covered.

I love how doing this tones down your paper, allowing you to add more layers of other colors and/or stamps.

Tip:You can use a heat gun to speed up the drying process...I always do. No patience for watching paint dry.

Step3.
Spritz some glimmer mist to your left over paint, mix until desired tone.

 Step4.
Using your tinted paint, apply directly to your background stamp with the paint brush. Stamp on top of the painted news print paper.

***IMPORTANT***

WASH YOUR STAMPS IMMEDIATELY AFTER STAMPING....

***DO NOT LET THE ACYRLIC PAINR DRY****

 Step5.
Repeat with the butterfly stamp and then stamp onto orange card stock, cut out after it has dry.

To dress up and finsih my card you'll see the new First Place Award Ribbon die-namic (for the sentiment). I added the small scallop border with the Scallop Ribbon die-namic (just cut it in half and attached it to the fishtail banner piece).  The sentiment is the only image I acutally used a stamp pad for. You can find that one in the Inspired by Spring set.

One of the best part about working with paint in this way on your cards is there is no wrong way to do it.  Just apply it and have fun!  Kim's Blog has the Paint Challenge Bloggers.

There is also a great thread started on SCS, so you can easily find some great projects with Paint from the DT in the future. You can find that HERE for easy reference.