A Little stitching....

....no, A LOT of stitching. My good friend, Tanya won these awesome stitching templates last Spring at a crop we were at. I was thinking about them the other day and asked her if she had ever used them. "Nope, not yet," she says, "Why? Do you want to try them." I jumped at the suggestion since I already had an idea for them in mind. I should have paid attention to who they were made by because they really are cool. Sorry, so I can't tell you were to find them. Anywhoo, I got way in over my head with this project. This first card is what I started out with. Easy, peasy, short and sweet. I love how the card turned out and I especially love the little cross-hatches on the two corners. This turned out just like I wanted it to-Love that! I got the idea for the bird on a branch from this card by the uber-talented, Becky. So, after this quick and simple card, I went on to the original idea I had for these templates-a stitched border on a scrapbook page. I love my sewing machine, well, on most days I do, but I wanted a bigger stitched look around my double page spread. There was this cool, loopey stitch that I thought would work well on my spread. It did and I love how it turned out, but OH MY WORD did it take me FOREVER to so all the stitching. Now let me remind you that I am NOT a seamstress so maybe that had something to do with it, but I am not kidding you I think it took me almost two hours to complete both pages of stitching. The things we do for the love of this craft! So here is a close up of the detail on the stitching. Now that I look at it up close, it isn't so impressive, but I love home-made feel it gives my pages. I have to give credit to the Sketch 102 class for the layout. This is one of the last ones I had left to use. Check out those letters, too. I found some Thickers and now am wondering why I waited so long to get some. They are too cool. I even got them on sale, so bonus for me! I think I carried on enough about these two projects. Thanks for listening to me ramble. Check back tomorrow for my BIG announcement. It's big to me, anyway. Have a fabulous Thursday! Hugs,

NMBS Swap Card

Our swap cards are on their way back to us from my NMBS group. This was another swap for the Holiday Mini. I signed up for the Season of Friendship set. I really think this is a great set, I know I love all the stamps I order, hehehe! I'm already thinking ahead to spring and summer cards with this set. The versatility of it is wonderful. On this card I wanted to bring in the winter feel and use some of the new funky Frosty Days dsp. So I used the little snowflake on the tree along with a few leaves to fill in some space. Yes, once again I used the scallop bigz die for my main panel. The ribbon is the new felt ribbon in the Alpine ribbon originals pack. Tomorrow is the day, all products from the Holiday mini will be available for customer purchase. Contact me directly or place your order on-line from my demo business website. Hugs,

Crazy for Circles

Or is it crazy for scallops? Both in this case. I am totally in {love} with my new giant scallop circle die for the Big Shot. I have been close to ordering another brand of circle dies, but held off and then decided to get the one that Stampin' Up! sells. It was hard to swallow the price, $20, but it is soooo worth it! It is huge and I love what I have been doing with it. Here are two circle cards I made today. I have seen lots of circle cards, but my friend Vera was the first one I saw post a card using the die from SU. Check this out! The first one is for my BFF's birthday and was for the Unity Wednesday Pre-Hip Hop challenge (use the colors Black and Pink). I finally ordered the Pink Pirouette striped ribbon, so I had to use it on this card. I REALLY love how this second card turned out. I just think it is soooo stinkin' cute. I used the Season of Friendship stamp set along with the colors Kiwi Kiss, Tangerine Tango, Riding Hood Red and some Choc. Chip. I accented it with some striped Tangerine ribbon and a Kiwi Kiss button from the button Bouquet. The scallop card is easy to make, just put a folded piece of cs on the die with the folded edge just inside one part of the circle. This will make your hinge and leave a flat edge to the card. To hide that straight edge, Vera suggested cutting out another full scallop circle and attach that the the card front. Just line the scallops up together and it gives a nice finished look to the card. You will be seeing lots more of this die. It is my new favorite toy, I tell ya! What is your favorite new item you've purchased lately? Hugs,

Season of Friendship Sneak Peek

I am working on another round of swaps with a few of my groups. My Holiday mini pre-order came last week and I mounted everything as soon as the order arrived but didn't get a chance to ink the rubber up until today. The first set I played with was Season of Friendship. It is the cutest Tree (humongous, BTW) with four different little images you can add to the branches. The dsp is called Autumn Vine and I drew my colors from that (Really Rust, More Mustard, Choc.Chip, and Sage Shadow). Check out that ribbon...It's a new Ribbon Originals pack with choc. chip felt ribbon! I {heart} it! The next card I did focused on the snow flakes and I drew my colors from the Frosty Days dsp. These are fresh, fun, and funky winter colors. I really like them and can't wait to use them on some winter scrapbook pages. I think it will make for some updated snow pages. The colors are Bashful Blue, Really Rust, Close to Cocoa, and Old Olive. Thanks for stopping by again today! Hugs,