Lots of love...

Hello beautiful people visiting my blog! I hope you're having a great day! We're expecting more snow than we thought...possibly 5-6"....so I'm making a grocery store run while in town for Jordan's guitar lessons. Nothing like news of a big storm to boost the economy! :)

Today I have a pretty little Valentine card to show you using JustRite's Favorite Occasions Borders & Centers stamp set(which works with the 1-5/8" or 2" stampers). I love images that I can punch out with my circle punches. They make such quick and easy accents for cards. I paired this pretty little flowery heart and sentiment up with punched hearts from Making Memories' new Valentine line that I got at Archiver's.
My accent piece is decked out with a piece of vintage paper doily, old sheet music and a pretty tied ribbon. Background papers are also from Making Memories. Stapler is Tiny Tim's....well, it's from Tim Holtz but I call it Tiny Tim. I love those little staples! I found mine at my local scrapbook store.
Hope you enjoy my card!!

I'm off to gather some wood before it all gets covered with snow. Let's revert back to one of my favorite characters, Mary Ingalls Wilder. Pa wants some wood carried in so I'm gonna go put on my britches and wheelbarrow some up to our little house on the prairie. All the little ones are at school so I reckon I'll have to fetch it all by myself. You're getting a visual, eh?

How sweet it is...

At a recent trip to Archivers I headed straight for the Making Memories display. It's my favorite part about Archivers that I always look forward to. I wasn't disappointed when I found the new Valentine items. I purchased several sheets of patterned paper, including this collage sheet below. It has great images that can be cut up to use on projects. And that's just what I did for my Valentine card below. I paired a cut image from the patterned paper with Karen Lockhart's new Cupcake With Sprinkles stamp. A perfect combo, just like cupcakes and frosting. While at that link above, you can see all of Karen's new releases on her homepage.

I colored my cupcake image using the Copic Sketch markers shown at the end of this post. A little glitter makes the cupcake extra special. If you want to cut out stamped images to use on projects like I did, here's a little tip for you: Leave a white border around your image when you cut. It makes it look like a store bought embellishment, very cool.

Here's my Copic Sketch colors used for coloring the cupcake:

The rest of my card was embellished with more Making Memories patterned paper, pink rhinestones, Papertrey Kraft cardstock and Papertrey Scarlet Jewel Luxe Satin ribbon. Hope you enjoy my card today! Have a great weekend everyone.

Last Minute Holiday Gifts

EDITED FOR QUESTIONS:
1. Nope, I haven't made the cocoa recipes yet. Can't promise when I'll get around to that, just too much other stuff on my plate right now.
2. The inside of my cards today are totally blank. The ribbon I used is cut to fit the front only.
3. What Copic markers should you purchase? Check this link out by Debbie Olson HERE. She has taken a lot of time to provide a great wealth of information about Copics. Great advice Debbie, and thank you for compiling it all in once place!

Do you always find yourself needing some last minute holiday gifts? JustRite to the rescue. Follow along with our blog hop to see some last minute gifts you can whip up in a flash.

For me, hand made cards are always a well received gift. You don't even have to leave your house. Go ahead and stay in your jammies. Let's get stampin'! I know you have stamps:
And you've got lots of glittery goodness:

Ribbon? Come on ladies, fess up. You've got a gazillion yards of ribbon:

I'm sure you have a few pieces of patterned paper lying around:

Maybe some buttons:

You probably have enough card making supplies to keep you busy for years, am I right? Nod your head yes. The only thing I can think that you might need.......if you're like me.......is a magic fairy to come along to clean up your stamp area and give you a little more stamping space! And pray that she arrives with a big dump truck! ;) Hey, I see a 12" clean spot on my stamping table......let's get stampin' girls!

I thought I would whip up a few Christmas thank you cards today. Those are always needed and often overlooked....a perfect gift. I'll be coloring today, so here's the lineup of Copic Sketch markers that I'll be using:

And I'll also be using the JustRite stamp set called Christmas Treasures Borders and Centers. I love the cardinal image with the bird house. I started out by stamping my images with Palette Black Noir ink. If you find that you're picking up a little of the stamp edges, go ahead and trim your stamp image like what I've done in the photo. I made easy work of my main images by punching them out with a Giga scalloped square punch. I then colored my images with my Copic Sketch markers.

Next up, I decided what products I wanted to use for my cards and created a simply design. I chose to use a Making Memories patterned paper that has perfect coordinating red cardinals in the design. I found mine at Michael's in a paper pad. For my card base, I used PTI Kraft and stamped a Hero Arts Woodgrain background stamp in PTI Fresh Snow. It's so fun to use your supplies that coordinate. The woodgrain background mimics the woodgrain in the bird house image.

Next, I assembled my cards and then went straight for my stash of embellishment goodies. I used Papertrey's Scarlet Jewel ribbon and Vintage Buttons, Stickles, Vintage Glass Glitter and Glossy Accents. Yes, all that!On my pretty bird image, I used Stickles and the glass glitter to create snow on the bird house. Glossy Accents was used to add shine to the holly and berries. Oh, I used a white gel pen also to dot the cardinal's eye so it stood out a little better.

Here's one of my finished cards. You can see that I also added Vintage Buttons tied with twine.

And here's my little stash of cards. A little tip for you: When creating cards to give as gifts, try to keep the *bulk* to a minimum. If I'm going to give away a little pile of cards, I try to keep my ribbon and embellishments fairly flat. tThe cards package up much nicer. And it doesn't matter how you package up your cards, the recipient will LOVE them......and will probably beg for more! So get out your supplies...use up some of those goodies.....and stamp some cards!

Wanna be more inspired? Check out the JustRite blog and the following designers' projects for even more great ideas:

JustRite Blog
Angela Barkhouse
Barb Schram
Becca Feeken
Debbie Olson
Heidi Blankenship
Kathy Jones
Kellie Fortin
Lauren Meader
Lisa Somerville
Michele Kovack
Sharon Harnist
Sharon Johnson
Terre Fry

Clear Cardstock Stamping

You'll clearly see in a little bit that I've had a lot of fun creating embellishments for my scrapbooks lately. Clear, decorative page and photo overlays, fancy flower embellishments and printed ribbon are really fun products to add to scrapbooking projects. However the price can really put a dent in your pocketbook. Follow me as I show you how to create your very own embellishments.

I have a ton of photos to show so I'll try to keep my writing shorter for each photo. For an overview, I've started two 8" x 8" albums for Josey and Jordan. I picked up an entire collection of products from the Making Memories line called Chloe's Closet from Michael's, so that's what you'll be seeing in terms of papers, etc.


We'll start with some simple embellishments with the finished products shown later on. Using Vintage Cream ink and Polka Dot Basics, I inked up some plain colored flowers. I let these dry and moved on to some other embellishments.
Next I used some cream colored acrylic paint (Claudine Hellmuth's available at Ellen's store) to stamp a scallop border from Beyond Basic Borders right onto my photos. Note: Papertrey Fresh Snow and Vintage Cream ink will not dry on photos or the Clear Cardstock, I found out by trial and error).

Next I went back to my Vintage Cream ink and stamped a row of polka dots from Beyond Basic Borders onto some Melon Berry Twill Ribbon.

Then the fun really began when I thought about stamping on Papertrey's new Clearly Creative Cardstock. It has a great thickness and worked well with some of my punches...you just have to experiment to see which punches will work.

I then took my dry, clear circles and turned them into button baubles. I punched some scallop circles from cardstock and then layered on my clear circles then buttons tied with twine. Cuteness, yes?

Then I really got on a roll. I decided to make some page dividers like you see in calendar planners. I cut my Clearly Creative Cardstock with my paper trimmer, rounded the corners and then painted the edges with cream paint.

Voila, here's my finished dividers. Using some journaling sheets, I stamped on a sweet sentiment using a small alphabet and Fresh Alphabet for the girls' names.

I also stapled on some of my stamped, polka dot ribbon along with a few other ribbons and tied buttons. Major cuteness, yes?

And notice the bottom of the dividers. I used rub-ons directly onto the Clearly Creative Cardstock. Looks amazing and just like something you'd buy at your local scrapbook store!

Well, than I got even braver and reached for some giant polka dots from Polka Dot Basics. Using a foam brush, I kept adding thin layers of paint to a sheet of Clearly Creative Cardstock.
My final result is an 8" x 8" page overlay with the edges brushed with paint.

I think all of my stamped elements come together perfectly for the cover pages of my girls' albums. Here's Josey's first page of her book.

The page overlay looks so cute when layered on top of some decorative paper.

I even fancied the overlays up a bit with some stamped tabs. Stapling is a great method of adhering items to the Clear Cardstock.

And here's Jordan's first opening page, using a green theme.

Again, the simple layering add so much to the albums, but without a lot of thickness.

I also made a small stash of 4" x 6" stamped overlays to add to photos here and there.

And don't forget about Pine's Journaling Lines stamps. I used them on two separate journaling blocks on the left hand side for notes from Eric and I.

Remember those stamped flowers? I added a tied button and adhered it to the outside of my page protector. The 3-D effect is really fun! I learned that little tip from Simple Scrapbooks magazine. I also added a little ribbon next to the scallop edge that I stamped on the photo.

I used that same application for Josey's photo, adhering the button bauble to the outside of the page protector.

Whew, okay that should be enough to get the ideas flowing for a while. Like I've mentioned before, I love that I'm getting back into my scrapbooking. Don't forget that you can get double duty out of your stamping supplies by using them on your pages too. And think about what products you like in the stores...you probably have items in your stash to recreate those trendy products. Have fun!

You go girl!

My friend Carmen came over to stamp and brought these cute Bella girl stamps from Stamping Bella. We made up some fun cards for our *big loser* friends. There's nothing better than receiving encouragement from friends and family when you're trying to lose weight! I think I should just send all these to myself...I need all the help I can get!!Papers and embellishments are from Making Memories Garden Party line. Vintage Buttons and base cardstock of Aqua Mist from Papertrey. The images are colored with Copic Sketch markers. The brush tips of the Sketch markers are so nice for coloring the little spaces of the Bella stamps.

Here's a closeup of all the little button embellishments.

Thanks for letting me borrow your stamps Carmen! I can't wait to send these out.

Pile of Socks

There usually is a huge basket piled with socks at our house. Nobody likes to fold socks....folding socks just stinks. It's the one chore I will not do at our house. I torture the girls with this chore when they are being naughty... :)


However...I can handle the pile of socks below. I love Karen Lockhart's Warm Socks stamp along with the "well, that stinks" sentiment. These days, it seems like more and more of my friends are being affected by the economy, illnesses, family stuff, etc. Life is hectic for everyone. It's the perfect time to send out lots of cards to let those we care about know that we're thinking about them. These cards are perfect!
I used up some more of my stash of Making Memories Garden Party papers that I had sitting out, along with some tied Papertrey Vintage Buttons. The base for the cards is Papertrey Kraft cardstock.

I paper pieced the socks onto some of the striped patterned paper and Josey colored in a few parts with a pink Copic marker for me. Then I just stamped the image again onto the green gingham paper and adhered my cut out socks. All the little scallops on the patterned paper pieces were just little snippets that I cut off here and there from the papers in my kit.

Easy peasy cards that came together really quickly. I must get these out in the mail....my friends need me!!

Just a note gift set

Edited to add: Tricia asked what other types of gifts I keep in my gift stash basket. Most of the items are stamped gifts such as notepads, notecards, etc. I recently did some lip gloss sacks....just whatever I find that would make cute, inexpensive gifts. If you check the bottom of my blog posts, you'll find that I've added labels for each post. You can easily click on those links and all of my related blog posts will show up. I have a label that is for *GIFTS*, so click on that from time to time to see all my gift ideas grouped together. Thanks for visiting today!

Edit #2. Dottie asked if the large glassine bags would fit 4 regular cards with envelopes. Definitely YES! If you wanted a more see through version that would fit even more cards, you could use Papertrey's clear card boxes shown HERE.

You guys know that I love to make little notecards by now. I decided to start making up some little gift packs of notecards to have in my gift stash. This way, when I need a little gift I can reach into my gift basket and have some items ready....instead of scrambling for a gift at the last minute. I plan to use these for teacher gifts, thank you gifts and just for those times when I want to give someone a little something special.

I started out by stamping some simple circle embellishments, using the new Just Rite Times Roman lowercase alphabet, and border stamp. I placed the alphabet letters and the border onto the small wooden stamper to create one complete stamp. I cut and embossed the circles with Spellbinder's Circle Nestabilities, then mounted them onto Spellbinder's Pinking Dies in Papertrey Ripe Avocado cardstock.
For the actual notecards, I used quater sheets of cardstock to create a 2 layer notecard with no folds. On the top layer of PTI Vintage Cream, I added a 1" x 3" strip of patterned paper from the Making Memories Noteworthy collection (an older collection, found at Archivers). I took a fine tip marker and drew some lines next to the patterned paper.
I then adhered my circle embellishments over the top of the patterned paper, leaving a little of the circle hanging over the top. Simply turn the paper over and trim off the excess with scissors.

Here's my finished notecards below. Very simple, with just enough space to write a quick note. I love the detail that the Spellbinders dies offer. You could also personalize these cards by switching up the Just Rite stamps that you use. You could add a monogram, a full name, etc.

I also created a matching notebook, using the same supplies as I did for my notecards(notebook from my stash, source not available). I added a strip of Papertrey Ripe Avocado stitched ribbon and a tied button. I'm in to simple packaging these days, so I opted for a Papertrey Large Glassine Bag. The notebook will be tucked inside for a very simple presentation.

The top of the bag is folded over and secured with an embellished clothespin, available at discount stores, Walmart, etc.

I love the idea of these little gift bags full of stamped goodies. All of the supplies were readily available from my stash and overall make for a very inexpensive gift. I cant' wait to have more of these in my gift stash.