The End of them...

These are the last of my WCMD challenge cards. I didn't win the Unity prize, but that's okay, it was just the incentive I needed to jump in and do all seven challenges. This first one was the Limited Supplies challenge-No P's please. We couldn't use designer paper or pastels! No pattern paper was definitely a challenge for me, especially when told not to use it, it made me want to use it more. I decided to make my own. I used the funky, Hullabaloo stamp. Inked it up in white and stamped it on Kraft cs. I also kept it simple with just the two colors, tied it up with some Riding Hood Taffeta ribbon and added a choc. chip felt flower. The last challenge card I have for you turned out to be my favorite for the fact that I really tried something new. It was the technique challenge and we had to create our own layered flowers. If you use different sized circles and layer the on top of each other, ruff up their edges and hold them together with a button or brad you can make some pretty cool flowers as an accent for your card. I really wanted to try one of those ribbon flowers like we did at Convention. So I did. I actually made three of them and used them as a layer on my flowers. I really struggled with the stitching at Convention when we did these, but this weekend I was able to make them rather quickly. Yeah, me! This is a big, bulky card, one I would never mail ( at least not without special packaging) but someone someday is going to get this beautiful, card for their Birthday! Happy Wednesday! Hugs,

Some more of WCMD!

I finished all seven challenges over on SCS for World Card Making Day. The other day I showed you a couple of the cards I did. Here are two more of the ones I finished up on Sunday. This is the color combo challenge card. Lemon Lime twist was the name for the challenge. We needed to use a a lime green, a yellowish-orange, black, dark gray and vanilla. It sounded a bit weird to me at first, the lime green was really scaring me (I am not a big fan of the bright colors, green galore makes me cringe). Then I remembered a little tip, if you don't like the color, use it sparingly. That's what I did and actually REALLY like this card (plus I got to use a retired favorite, marigold morning). The Ways to Use it challenge was called, Tree-mendous and required the use of a tree stamp or anything to do with a tree. I used this beautiful tree image from Unity (Growing in Unity). I must have been on a square card kick, because most of the cards I did on Saturday were a 4 1/4 square. I paired this up with some of the Autumn Vine dsp and my rectangle nestabilites for the scallops. Rectangles you ask, those are squares. Well, if you cut out two of the same size rectangles and overlap them on each other, lining up the scallops you can create squares (probably wasn't the best explanation of that, but I tried). That was one reason I ordered the rectangles first, because I could get some more mileage out of them. The ribbon is white taffeta dyed sage shadow.
I do have two more cards to share with you from WCMD, but I'll stretch it out one more day since I haven't really stamped much since then. As always, thanks for stopping by! Hugs,

Frankie and Spiders

I made myself get into the Halloween spirit this weekend. I feel like I already missed the Holiday since I have been seeing Halloween stuff posted on most blogs for weeks now. I know we have to think ahead in this business, but I have a hard time "getting into the spirit" if it is just too early. Now that we are a week into October and the air is starting to feel cool (well it was last week, today we are supposed to be 80!) I'm starting to feel Halloween. This first card is something you have probably seen now, multiple times all over the stamping world. I sure wish I knew who came up with the original idea, I just adore him. He is created with the Top Note bigz die for the Big Shot and lots of SU punches. I mounted him on a full sized card of black cs, lined with tangerine tango. I used the sanded background and distressed the edges with the cutter kit (still one of my favorite tools). I kept the sentiment simple with two words from Everyday Flexible Phrases (had to go diggin' for this set, it had been awhile). The next two cards feature my newest, Unity stamp that I won for FREE on a Hip Hop Thursday two weeks ago. It is the Distressed Spidey Dance. I stamped it three times on this card and pieced it together to make the journaling brackets a little wider. This fits the Limelight sketch from last Friday. I pulled out my one and only Halloween set, Booglie Eyes (retired, SU) and colored and cut out Frankie. OH, yeah, the ribbon is from Limelight and I won that a few weeks back for playing along with their sketch challenge. How cool is that?! Here is the other card using the Distressed Spidey Dance from unity and it shows the complete image. I added the words using my Simple Serif mini alpha and Everyday Flexible phrases again. This was the second card I did with the WCMD sketch challenge by AJ on Saturday. This time I used the ribbons for the three strips. If you haven't jumped into any Halloween projects, now's the time! Have fun with this fun color combo-kiwi, pumpkin/tangerine, purple and black! Happy Monday! Hugs,

I was busy stamping yesterday

Lucky me! the day turned out in my favor. Tim napped (he's working nights this weekend) while the baby napped, the boys were playing outside, no afternoon soccer games, and after Nicholas woke up the girls next door played with him for almost two hours (they were great little mommy helpers). I was able to stamp, stamp, and stamp. I'm on a mission to finish all 7 challenges over on SCS. If you have them uploaded by Monday evening they qualify for some prizes AND the wonderfully, generous, Angela at Unity is offering up a prize to one lucky winner that uses all Unity stamps for all 7 challenges. Couldn't pass that up...Here's what I've done so far. This is one for the featured stamper challenge.

This was for the sketch challenge that AJ posted. It was such a fun sketch. I also did a Halloween card and used ribbon for the three strips on the left. But I'm saving that for another day.

And this was for the Inspiration challenge. Our inspiration piece was the cover of the Coldwater Creek catalog. That's all I have time for right now, off to church. Hugs, Lisa

Let's Celebrate!

Happy World Card Making Day! How cool is it, that we have a Holiday to celebrate this wonderful craft we all do! I'll upload some eye-candy a little later (we have an early soccer game today) so for now I'll just link a few of my favorite sites that are doing something for this special day.
SCS-there a challenges and giveaways all day long check it out.

Unity Stamp Co.-check out their blog and the member company forum on SCS

Limelight Papercrafts-follow this link to see all the details

Anywhere you go today, you'll find tons of fun and lots of sharing. Get involved and if nothing more, then I challenge you to just take some time to stamp. Make a card, feel good, and send it out to someone. There is nothing better than paying it forward!

Last of my swaps

September was a busy swap month with the new catty and Holiday mini coming out right on top of each other. I love swapping so I had fun with all the cards I had to make. I think I told you all before I ended up doing 5 different swaps between all three of my groups. The last one to go out was for the GSG girls! I used A Cardinal Christmas for this swap. This card is similar to the one that I will use for my own personal Christmas cards. It has a lot of my favorites on it, including the top note die, the Alpine striped ribbon, a scallop circle and some dsp (this is the artichoke patters dsp from the hostess pack sampler). I just adore the sentiment included in this set. I hope to have lot of Stampin' Up! stuff to share with you soon. My goal this weekend is to use SUO-stampin' up only! Happy Friday! Hugs,

Seasons of Unity

Wow, I am feeling so blessed in my stamping ventures as of late! AJ asked me the other day if I would mind being featured on the Unity Blog for Angela's Watch Out Wednesday segment. Without hesitation, I said YES! I'm so thrilled!! So go check it out! In honor of today, I put together a little four some of cards using the Birds of a Feather kit.

This group of cards started with the autumn card. I created that one for this week's color challenge on SCS-really rust, choc. chip, and baja breeze! These are such ME colors. I got to thinking and decided to expand on this card and used three other bird images to create a card for each season. I used the same layout on all four, just changed

up the colors and images. The sentiments change as well, so they are appropriate for each season. The cards are all 4 1/4 square and I think they are just adorable.

Thanks for stopping by today and sharing in my excitement. Hope you are having a wonderful week! Hugs,