October 31, 2007

Halloween photos

Q & A: Jennifer asked how I get my Spellbinder's Dies to emboss so deeply. I think the key for me is the Wizard die cutting machine. Honestly, it does not compare to any other machine I've used. It works on a rachet system and is made of solid metal construction, not a piece of plastic on this baby! The pressure the roller bars put on the *sandwich* of plates and dies is so extreme, we're talking hundreds of pounds of pressure. This enables the cuts and embossing detail to be superb. And the heavy duty plastic plates that you run through the machine do not warp or break so you are not spending extra money on replacement plates. Now with all things good comes a good price tag too, right? Welllllllll yes, the Wizard is more expensive than some other machines but like my Dad always said.....*you get what you pay for*. If you are a serious die cutter this machine will pay off in the long haul for you. I wouldn't steer you wrong ladies.......it's Halloween after all!!! You can purchase the Wizard and lots of Spellbinder's dies at Ellen's store at the link in orange above. Hope this information is helpful!! Now on to today's post!!!!!!!!

Have I said I like Halloween? Here's some photos from Halloween this year. Enjoy! These are treats for the girls......giant covered candy bars. Spellbinder's Tag, SU! stamp set. Some of the decorations in my hallway.
Treat sacks for teachers and friends. Lots of goody bag tags from Nichole's Papertrey Halloween set and sacks. There's white chocolate popcorn in the goody sacks and giant monster cookies in the glassine sacks.....I use the Nestle Toll House recipe but add in tons of chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, nuts and Halloween colored M & M's.
Halloween cards from my last stamp club......Stampin' Up! supplies for everything.

A spooky little shop we went to in Kansas City called Curious Sofa. FUN!! I want to grow pumpkins like that next year!!

Full photo of my fireplace mantel. We've had one toasty fire this year so far. Love it!
More goody sacks for my Stampin' Up! friends that came over for Card Club last month.
Close up of monster cookie sacks.

I hope you all have a safe and super FUN Halloween. We'll be getting our costumes ready for the big night. The girls have such fun running from house to house trick or treating. It's really chilly and windy here today so it will be a typical Kansas Halloween.......get all dressed up and then cover it all up with a heavy coat......any hat that will be worn(like Jordy's giant witch hat)will blow off over 20 times tonight.....Eric and I will sneak candy bars out of the girls' bag.......come home and dump out candy to sort......fight because *she took one of my candy bars, I KNOW it!*......go to bed with a sugar high.....wake up grumpy tomorrow because we're tired!! I loooooooooove it!!

October 29, 2007

Lockhart Show and Tell...

EDIT: CAN YOU SEE ALL THREE CARDS NOW??? I'M EXPERIENCING SOME TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES APPARENTLY......

I call this card *Cream Corn*. hee hee..Karen's beautiful Indian Corn colored with Copic markers and cut and embossed with a Spellbinder's Oval Die Template. I stamped the Millinery Ribbon Harvest stamp along the border of the cream colored card. So simple and easy...the perfect little note card for thank you's, etc.

Same type of card here with the Copic colored Bouquet stamp. Image is cut and embossed with a Spellbinder's Oval Die Template. The card base is stamped with the Millinery Rose stamp with matching rose border on the envelope. Notecards are Arturo in Cream.
I needed some Fall cards for birthdays and little thank you notes. I can't get enough of this Cosmo Cricket Gretel paper so I paired it up with Karen Lockhart's cute cupcake image and sentiment. You might not traditionally see green cupcake liners with gold frosted cupcakes.....but hey it's a stamp, you can color it whatever color you wish! LOL! I'm thinking that these are a childhood favorite flavor of mine......chocolate cupcakes with that yummy coconut pecan frosting. The image is punched out with a SU! scallop oval punch. Gold Stickles finish off the frosting.
All Lockhart stamps, Arturo notecards, Copic markers and Spellbinder's Die Templates can be purchased at Ellen's online store.

October 26, 2007

Rubber Soul Samples

First thing, just a note about selling your stamped goods. Although I can't help you guys price your individual items, I do have a tip for you. First figure out much money you want to make an hour for your time. If you want to make $20 an hour and you charge $2.00 for your cards, then you need to be able to produce 10 cards in one hour. Also, figure up how much your projects cost to make. You can compare that cost to your hourly rate and how long it took you to make the project. If the two prices are close, then you're probably charging a good rate. If your project didn't cost that much but took longer to make, then add some padding to the cost for your time. You might want to charge less for family, you might want to charge more for special orders like invitations, etc. You just gotta jump in there and figure it out, it will get easier. Don't worry about charging your friends or relatives. Buy yourself a sales receipt book and include a written receipt with the order. This gives the impression that you are operating your own little business.

Dividers for my card basket: I just add dividers as I make cards that fit into certain categories. I have all holidays, get well, anniversary, birthday and even some categories for good sellers like coffee and girly girl. I suggest making a list of cards that you yourself would purchase and then just start creating.

Now on to today's projects. I did version of this card layout a while back from a SCS challenge. I forgot to add this one that has a fun Spellbinder's Flower Die. You can purchase it at Ellen's online store. Stamp set is called Springtime Mom. It's got some great images that can be used all year round. This next card below is a simple Christmas card that really shows off this fun Santa image from the Holiday Whimsical Rubber Soul set. I simply masked the snowman with a circle piece of Eclipse tape(from Ellen's store) then airbrushed around the circle with my Copic Airbrush System and blue marker. I love how it makes the snowman seem super duper white, he just pops off the page.
My final card for today has a tag theme and uses the Giving Christmas set from Rubber Soul. It's perfect for a card or for making actual gift tags to hang off gift sacks or to attach to wrapped gifts. The smaller tag tucked under the main image was created with a Spellbinder's Tag Die Template.

October 25, 2007

Bella in mass production mode!

Edit: How much do I sell my cards for? Usually I sell them for $2.50.....I know, I know.....I should charge more. My husband gets on me ALL the time. But that's what I like to sell them for and I sell a LOT more this way. And I mean lots.....I can take this basket to school or the soccer games and sell 20-30 cards easily. If I have some cards with tons of layers or make something custom for someone, I will charge more. And most of my cards are even more simple than these. I keep the embellishments simple. And I am a FAST stamper and can mass produce like crazy so I AM getting paid for my time. Hope this helps.

Edit: THANK YOU to Stefanie for the post time tip! I KNEW there had to be a way to change it but could not find it. You just made my day!!!

Here's my card stash basket. Cardstock dividers with printed labels. Yes, it's a Longaberger!
Here's some Bella cards I did a while back......in mass production style. I thought I was all set with birthday cards for my girlfriends. Well, my friend came over and started looking through my card stash and she snatched up almost all of these!!! Woohoo......however I forgot to take out a stash for myself! Back to the stamping board, right!! All colored with Copic markers.
Stampin' Up! paper on this one.
Basic Grey Mellow paper on these.
Bo Bunny floral on top card and My Mind's Eye paper on bottom cards. River Rock card base.
Cosmo Cricket Gretel paper with Really Rust card base.
Who knows on this last one, just a scrap from my paper stash. Background stamp from CHF. Scallop from Spellbinder's and Dew Drops from Ellen's store.



October 23, 2007

Here comes Hanna!!

Becky Higgins update: My life is complete now....Becky emailed me!! I think it is SO refreshing that someone as busy as Becky took time to email me. I'm sure Becky would say, *I'm just another girl on the block*, but she is so much more. She has inspired me from the very first issues of Creating Keepsakes and has helped my hobby grow into so much more. I've met some of my very best friends through scrapbooking and stamping......you guys are included. To be able to share what I love to do and know that when I post something you'll all leave nice comments...it makes all the difference in the world to know I'm helping someone to become a better stamper, etc. I consider you all my friends!! And Becky if you happen to read this, thank you so much for making my day!! You are a gem!!! P.S........Becky's husband noticed that I didn't have her on my blog list! Yikes!! She's there now so be sure to check out her blog....and that awesome pumpkin muffin recipe she has posted.

So on with today's post, I have yet another stamping adventure to announce. I have joined the Hanna Stamps Design Team. Thank you Kristi for inviting me to join the wonderful group of talented ladies! Hanna Stamps is a brand new company with it's first stamp set release unveiled just a short time ago. The images are modeled after Kristi's adorable daughter Hanna and are drawn by the artist of Kim Possible(can you see the resemblence?)!! My girls think that is SO cool!! These are clear stamp sets and work well with your favorite inks. I prefer Palette Noir Black Ink. The first released set is called *But I Need It* and features a shopping Hanna with lots of packages and matching shopping stamps. So adorable and I know I'll use this set lots for all of my shopaholic girlfriends! This card has a fall color theme which was inspired by my favorite paper company right now. It's Cosmo Cricket and the paper line I used here is called Gretel. I paper pieced Hanna's dress to tie it all together and then colored the other image parts with Copic markers. I can tell that my Copics are going to get a lot of good use because Hanna Stamps just scream to be colored! For the card base, I used my all time favorite SU! color, River Rock. I am mildly obsessed (can you be mildly obsessed?) with this color right now along with the Robin's Egg Blue or Porcelain Blue color in the patterned paper. Love both of these colors!! For the round accent piece, I stamped the dollar sign heart image from this set and then cut it out and embossed it with a Spellbinder's small circle die. I mounted it on a SU! Really Rust Spellbinder's scallop circle. I popped it up with dimensionals to give even more dimension to the card. The main image is finished off with three Dew Drops from Ellen's store. They are round, bumpy, shiny and oh so beautiful. You will neeeeeed all of the colors and she's got 'em right now! Now this next card is a SNEAK PEEK of a new set that will be released this Friday called *Tis the Season*. It's just as adorable as the first set and will make a sweet addition to your holiday stamp collection. This is a standard card measuring 4.25" x 5.5", just so you can get an idea of the stamped image size. Hanna definitely stands front and center on standard card fronts. My best tip is to keep your cards simple and let the colored image steal the show. For the main images on this card, I again colored them with Copic markers. Hanna, the tree, the ornament and the swirlies are all separate stamps...you get a bunch more too! I then airbrushed around the colored images with a Copic B00 Frost Blue marker. No need to mask, I was just careful not to spray onto my images. I ruffled up the edges with a paper distressing tool then mounted the main image on SU! Cranberry Crisp cardstock. My card base is River Rock along with Basic Grey Figgy Pudding Forest patterned paper. This is a great line of Christmas paper. I finished off the card with a snippet of ribbon and silver cord and sparkled up the tree with some Martha Stewart glitter. Oh and the envelope.....I stamped snowflakes in black then airbrushed them with that same blue marker. Totally ties in with the card. I love to decorate my envies.

October 21, 2007

Kewpie's got cake!

Before I get to today's post, I have a special announcement. Becky Higgins mentioned me on her blog.........I think she wants to be my BFF after all! LOL!!!!!!!!! (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, scroll down a few posts and you can read all about it).


This is a birthday card for my awesome neighbor Tammy. She invites my girls over for fun times, babysits for me, throws awesome parties and is just SO nice. So I wanted to make her a special birthday card to give her along with a new cookbook. If any of you are Taste of Home fans, I highly suggest the cookbook called Taste of Home Fast Fixes with Mixes. I got it from the book people that come to our school but if anyone is interested in purchasing one, I can get the website and post it too. So for Tammy's card, I wanted it to have that *kitchen-y* feel so I reached for my Crafty Secrets stamps. I used the Kewpies set and the awesomely fun fork from Kitchen Classics along with the fun new sentiment from Papertrey's cake set. I colored the image with Copic markers and had to blend a few colors to come up with my new favorite color, which is the porcelain or robin's egg blue which you can see in one of my favorite paper lines from the Cosmo Cricket Dutch Girl collection called Klara. Cosmo Cricket is one of my favorite companies...I just purchased a BIG stack at the CK convention I went to. For the glowing candles, I used a Copic marker and the Copic Air Brush system. I think I use this tool on almost every card I make now, I love the soft airbrushed effect. Yes, you need one, put it on your Christmas wish list! After my card was all designed, I felt that the left side was a little heavy so I stamped a swirly image from Fancy Pants in SU! Soft Sky on the right side of the card. Just a subtle touch that did the trick to balance out my card. I finished off the card with some blue Decorative Pearls and some red Martha Stewart binding ribbon. Love that stuff, need more! The envelope is stamped with that same swirl image and stamped with a Crafty Secrets sentiment.

October 18, 2007

Two for one special.......

A friend of mine commissioned me to make a baby card for twins.......one baby girl and one baby boy! I used the Rubber Soul set called Baby Collection. I love the stick people in this set plus the other baby images and all the sentiments. It makes it so easy to pull together a project. The cute blue and pink papers are from some Memory Box collections at Ellen's store. And to put emphasis on both the boy and the girl onesies, I cut and embossed them with a circle Spellbinder's Die Template, then mounted them on pink and blue scallop cut Spellbinder's circles. Pink and blue ribbon finishes off the card, along with a matching envelope that has a pink and blue colored safety pin. The images were colored in solid with Copic markers. For the perfect baby blue and baby pink, I used Copic colors called RV11 Pink and B21 Baby Blue. Stampin' Up! Dazzling Diamonds glitter is on top of the onesies for some cute shimmer.

Supplies from Ellen's store: Memory Box patterned paper, Spellbinder's Die Templates, Copic markers.

October 17, 2007

Becky Higgins..my scrapbooking idol!

Where to find Rubber Soul products? If you're having a hard time finding online stores that carry Rubber Soul/Wordsworth products, you can order directly from Rubber Soul. Check out the ordering process HERE. I would simply call the phone number and tell them that I sent you. Hope that helps!

UPDATE: Becky's not gonna be at KC....I'm majorly bummed. But I totally understand why. I can't link to her blog for some reason but her little girl is sick and has been in the hospital. Best wishes to Becky and her family.

Friday is gonna be a GOOD day! I'm road tripping with 5 of my best scrapbooking buddies and we're heading to a Creating Keepsakes convention in Kansas City! The best part.....I get to meet Becky Higgins in person!!!!!!!!!! She has been my scrapbooking idol since the very first issue of Creating Keepsakes, my favorite scrapbooking magazines. I can't wait to meet her, shake her hand, get our photo and have her sign my new copy of her Sketches book. So if you are heading this convention, please know that you will need to get your chit chattin' done early with Miss Becky. Me and my new BFF will have LOTS to talk about once I get there!!! LOL!!

To round out my total suck up session with my new BFF Becky, I made her this cute little notebook. I know her favorite color is green because all of her scrapbook rooms have green in them.......I checked her blog just yesterday and there it was, her green scrapbook room!!

For the pencil jar, I colored the pencils with Copic markers in lots of shades of green....again for my new BFF Becky cuz she likes green! I cut and embossed the image out with a circle die and then while the die was still on the image, I airbrushed a light shade of green over the image. I learned that trick from other good friend, Debbie Olson. (By the way, check out her
bracelet kit at Ellen's store, it's SO DANG CUTE!! You need one, I'm gonna make one too!)

Now.......I have to say.....I included my business card on the inside of the notebook. If my new BFF Becky emails me about the notebook I will just die right here on my keyboard!!!!!!!!!

Supplies: Notebook from Target, covered with polka dot paper, Ribbon from May Arts,
Lockhart Pencil Jar stamp (you know it's one of my faves!), Copic markers and airbrush system, Spellbinder's Nestability Dies (got my circles, yay!), Karen Foster tiny letter stamps.

October 11, 2007

So lucky......before and after

Let's do a little before and after card makeover today. First, let's take a look at this card below. The background is of the card is one of my new favorite layouts, I love it! Again, I get the most out of that full 12 x 12 piece of patterned paper by cutting 4" x 4" squares, thus getting 9 pieces from one sheet. Gotta love that! But let's talk about the focal image in the before card below. It's stamped and then cut very closely around the main image. It's okay, but it's kinda boring. I know this is how a lot of us cut our images too...we cut right up to the focal image, leaving no white space or a place for a sentiment or any other design elements. I think we can add a lot of interest to our cards if we think about a few things before we make that first cut. Let's take a look at the after card I made. I just love it so much better than the first sample. First, I looked at all of the stamp images that were in the set and decided what sentiments I wanted to use for this card. I was able to use three sentiments simply by adding two more to my main image. But after I had those sentiments stamped next to my cute little stick couple, there was a LOT of white space in the upper right hand side of the main image. So I did a little creative thinking and made a heart template by cutting out a card stock heart with my Cricut machine. I used the negative image as a template and airbrushed a light tan color over my main image. Isn't it just the cutest? I think it adds to the feeling of *true love* without overpowering the stamped images. If you use a light enough color, you don't even have to mask over the colored stick people.
Sooooo, put a little creativity into your cards. Think about layout and placement of images, think about composition or how all of the elements of a card fit together, think about the mood you want to convey, think about using all of those tools and supplies you have sitting around. If you want to see some more great samples, two great stampers come to mind: Valerie Stangle because she leaves a LOT of white space around her images. Just peruse through her blog and you'll see what I mean. And Julie HRR (Julie Ebersole), she is the queen of putting together little scenes by using lots of images on her focal points of her cards.


Now, who is this card for? Well, I originally made this card for my husband for our anniversary coming up on the 15th. And I know how busy our weekend will be and then my DH leaves on our anniversary day to go out of town for a few days for work. So instead of my DH having to go shop for a $4 card or make one on the computer like he usually does, I'm making a card for both of us. Huh? Well, what I've done is cut 2 white mats for the inside of the card. One for the top and one for the bottom. I'm going to ask DH to write a message on one and I'll write a message on the other one, then I'll adhere them to the inside of the card. I'll put the date on the card and then I'll have a nice memento for our anniversary this year. I already got my gifts....a shopping spree to Archiver's last weekend! Woohoo.


Supplies: SU! solid card stock, Cosmo Cricket Gretel patterned paper, Copic markers and Airbrush System(from Ellen's store), Rubber Soul Love Collection Set, Martha Stewart ribbon from Michael's.

October 9, 2007

Airbrushed Fall Bouquet

Does this stamp look familiar? I think I've used this Lockhart Bouquet stamp for every season possible and I just love it. This card has no sentiment on the outside and I did that intentionally so that it can used for a get well, birthday, congratulations, thinking of you, etc. type of card. I like to keep a few of those in my stash basket because it always seems that I'll need a get well card but have mostly thank you cards. I can go back in later and stamp a sentiment on the inside if I want to. The base card is made from SU! Cranberry Crisp and the scallop mat is Morning Marigold. Patterned paper is from Bo Bunny, I believe. If you zoom in on the photo, you'll see a border type stamp. This is one of Karen Lockhart's new millinery border stamps and you can find them HERE at Ellen's store. They add the perfect border down the side of a card, could be used on the focal image of cards and work great along the bottom of envelopes too.

Now for the main image. I stamped the Bouquet image on Paptertrey Ink white cardstock and colored it in with Copic markers. I wanted somewhat of a muted look, so I held the sketch tip of my markers on the card stock and let them bleed out a little bit. You can especially notice this on the red berries. I used a green marker for the spaces that were in between all the leaves and flowers and berries to fill in some color also. I topped off the flowers with some shimmery gold color from a Copic Spica Glitter Pen. My image still seemed a little stark on the white card stock so I grabbed a Copic marker and the Copic Air Brushing System and just sprayed some color directly around the bouquet. It's just some random spritzes here and there, and I made sure to leave some of the white space around the edge of the card. I didn't want full coverage from the air brushing. I think cut and embossed the main image with an oval Spellbinder's Die Template and then matted the main image twice.......on a regular cut SB oval and then a cut and embossed scallop SB oval. I love how all the layers look nice and clean and fit together so nicely.......or should I say *nest* together since the dies are called Nestabilities. Two antique brads finish off the main image.

Halloween cupcakes

Just a fun little card today using Karen Lockhart's cupcakes. Every year my mom gets the girls a Halloween cupcake decorating kit. It has a cake mix with Halloween colored frosting, sprinkles and cupcake liners. So I thought this would be a fun thank you card in case Grandma pulls through again this year! Also, I've been dying to get my hands on a black, shiny hobnail cake plate but I can't find one around here anywhere. I saw one on a magazine cover with this beautiful Halloween cake and now I think I need one. I'm on a mission to find one!

I colored the image with Copic markers in fun Halloween orange hues. Then I cut and embossed the image with a Spellbinder's rectangle and scallop rectangle die template. Pretty simple layout with Stampin' Up! Halloween papers in the background.

Check out the photo below for a close up of the Copic Spica Glitter Pens, they are so shimmery! To top off the cupcakes, I colored some Decorative Pearls with my black Copic marker. Black and orange gingham ribbon finishes off the main image.
From Ellen's store: Spellbinder's Die Templates, Copic Markers, Decorative Pearls

October 7, 2007

Happy Thoughts

This card is going out to a friend who needs some TLC after a really long week. I hope she enjoys it! It's SO dang cute, even more so in real life I think. Let me tell you my thoughts about this card. It goes against a LOT of proper design *rules* but I think that's why I like it so much...it's quirky and whimsical and those types of cards usually end up being some of my very favorites.

1. The layout.....now I like the layout. It just came about while plopping down elements of the card. It enables me to use three colors of solid cardstock plus the neutral white. Again, I cut the patterned paper so that I can get the most out of one sheet of 12 x 12 paper. That's a good thing!

2. The colors......first off, the colors are probably not usual ones you'd reach for first out of paper stash. But I selected my color scheme from the patterned paper and went with pink, apricot, brown and green. I love how they all look but they sound horrifying together, don't they? I think it's an eclectic little mix that is fun and fresh. Secondly, did you notice that I used a white focal image cardstock but my patterned paper is a creamy vanilla color? Again, against your normal rules but I think the main image really stands out since it's white. Works for me!

3. Decorative patterns........I have the scallop edges of the square going on and then added a zig zag velvet ribbon. I really loved the color of this green ribbon and how it matched my flower stems so I went with it! Too much? I dunno but I like it!!

So, what's my point? Wellllll, my message for today is this: Don't get your undies all in a bunch worrying about your card designs. Loosen up, get a little funky, try something new, get WILD! You'll be surprised at how much you love those creations that a little wonky, eclectic and have funky color combinations. Don't worry about everything being so *matchy matchy*. Create a fun card and then a really funky ribbon to tie around it. Combine colors of the same tone but that are a little off......try grabbing three colors of green and just go for it. Don't worry if they aren't all the same, it adds a lot of interest to your cards. I think we put way too much pressure on ourselves about what our cards *should* look like. There ARE NO rules ladies......and if there were, rules were meant to be broken! Just don't tell my high school students I said that!! LOL. Anyway, have fun with your creations.....isn't that why you started stamping in the first place?

The supplies:

Cardstock is Apricot, Rose Romance, and Chocolate Chip from SU! Patterned paper also from SU! White is from Papertrey Ink. Pink sequins from AMuse(Ellen's store). Velvet ribbon by May Arts from my good friend Cindy at Star Lit Studio (I got all 15 colors!!), Spellbinder's Nestabilities Die Templates(Ellen's store), Stamp Set from Rubber Soul. Copic markers and Air Brush System(Ellen's store).

Card design: A couple things worth mentioning......for the main image, I snipped the corners with my SU! ticket corner punch then adhered it to the scallop square. This really shows off the rounded scallop corners and allowed me a place to put those cute, blingy sequins. And for the stamped images I used an adorable set from Rubber Soul called Everyday Whimsy (see, the name of the set is even whimsical!). The little flowers are so simple and cute and the sentiments and font are just as adorable! It's a fun little set to own. And my favorite part about the card is the airbrushed oval. I took an oval punch, punched a scrap piece of cardstock then placed that over my stamped sentiment. Then I used my Copic Airbrush System and a Copic marker to lightly mist the oval opening. Don't you love it? It added just a little more color to my main image plus helped to take up a little bit of some white space. I'll be using this technique LOTS more. So fun!

Q and A: A reader asked what the Copic Spica Glitter Pens are? They are glitter markers that add a wonderful, glittery sheen to your projects. There are 12 colors plus 1 clear pen, water based pigment ink, acid free, non toxic, archival safe, twice the writing length of other pens and get this.....they have micro glass flakes in them for maximum sparkles. You don't feel any texture but think of those glass rocks your kids buy while on vacation in Colorado........that same mega glittery look is what you get! You definitely need them and you can get them all at Ellen's store right HERE. Get sparkleeeeeeeeeee!

Announcement!!!!!!!!! Ellen's got Dew Drops, go check em out HERE!

October 5, 2007

You're sweet!

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a fun day yesterday for World Card Making Day!! I spent the day in Kansas City doing some anniversary shopping with my husband. We went to a cool vintage store with fun Halloween decorations, a stamp store where I got to visit with my fun and oh so talented friend Nichole Heady(for only 10 minutes, she had to catch a plane!), shoe shopping(new Nikes, yes!!) and then Archiver's. I didn't purchase anything from our first three shopping stops and my husband was getting worried about me! But after I hit the shoe store, JoAnn's (scored some 12 x 12 paper storage units and these awesome scissors my friend Val told me about, all at 40% off!), and then Archiver's.......well, I scored some good stuff!! At Archiver's, my favorite finds were the entire Christmas line from Bo Bunny(papers, buttons, chipboard letters, rubons, stickers) and this cool tote/purse bag from All My Memories(perfect little tote for my school subbing days, lots of pockets).

So enough about my day, on to my card for today........I was needing some new inspiration so I knew right where to head. This is Card Sketch #144 from Splitcoast Stampers, it's such a great design. You can view the sketch HERE. If you cannot get to this link, you may have to be registed at Splitcoast Stampers. This set is called Target Love (hey, I love Target!) by Rubber Soul and you might think of it as more of a Valentine set but I think most of the images could be used all year long. How 'bout that little coffee cup, it's adorable and will be right in season here soon when the cold weather comes to Kansas! For this card, I used Memory Box notecards for the base and solid mats. The patterned paper is from Rubber Soul also. In keeping with the card sketch, I needed a long focal image. Since the images from the Target Love set are small, I decided to stamp the cake three times, who doesn't love LOTS of cake right? The tops are frosted with red Stickles. I cut the bottom mat with my ancient Fiskars decorative scissors and tied a Martha Stewart binding ribbon to the corner. The card sketch also has little tab under the main image for the sentiment. For my card, I used the Spellbinder's Filing Folder Die Template to create a little tabbed piece of cardstock. I just used a portion of the file folder piece but you can see the entire collection HERE. Of course, these could be folded in half to resemble miniature file folders too. Can't wait to do that! The final accents were two AMuse twinkle stickers next to the sentiment. There's something about reds and yellows that you can pair together to get a real kitchen-y feel to a project. That's how I feel about this card. Hope you enjoy!!
Tip of the day: If you want to use ribbon on your card but are bow-tying challenged or feel that an entire loopy bow might be too overpowering for your card, try this. Start to tie the ribbon into a bow just like tying your shoes. Create that first loop then pull the second loop through. Snip both ends. I call it a half bow and use it lots on my card.

From Ellen's store: Memory Box notecards, AMuse twinkle stickers

October 4, 2007

Office Supply Halloween

I get inspired in the weirdest ways, I know! But I really love to design *out of the box* cards using stamps you wouldn't normally use for an occasion. Hence, my office supply Halloween card. First, I wanted to do some more Halloween cards using Lockhart stamps and I haven't used my pencil jar in a while (it's one of my faves). So I colored all the colored pencils in Halloween like colors and then sparkled them up with the Copic Spica glitter pens (be sure to zoom in to be mesmerized by all the sparkleeees). I stamped the Happy Halloween sentiment with a Rubber Soul wood stamp, I LOVE simple sentiments like this don't you? Well then I have been itching to use my new Spellbinder's Filing Folder Die Templates so that's how I cut my main image. It embosses too, how cool!! I continued on with my office theme by tying a Making Memories epoxy button to an orange paper clip and attached that to the main image. Ribbon is by Martha Stewart from Michael's. Then for the card base, I used Stampin' Up! patterned paper on SU! grey card stock. I used my date stamp from the office supply store to stamp Oct 31, 2007 over and over again. I went for that messy look......um, mainly because I messed up!! I crack myself up. I finished the card front off with velvet orange ribbon and two black brads. Now who will I send this card to.....our art teacher? Somebody that works at Staples? Somebody that likes colored pencils? Oh who knows, I might just keep it for myself!! Tip of the day: Challenge yourself to do an out the box kind of card. Do you miss your Valentine stamps? Get them out and make some Halloween backgrounds using orange and black hearts. Stamp Christmas candy in Halloween colors for a trick or treat themed card. Stamp a spring bouquet then color it in with black to resemble dead flowers for a funny Halloween card. Let me see how creative you can be, I challenge you! Be sure to post a link to your card so I can see. Stay tuned for my next Lockhart creation, I've got another out of the box design for you!

Hi Hoot Owl!

Have you noticed the owl trend lately? They're showing up everywhere! I thought it was such a hoot when Dani from Rubber Soul sent me this stamp set called *It's Your Day*. The grouped images of the owl, tree and circular foliage take up a big space so I kept the card pretty simple in design. I like to stamp solid images like these with Versamagic chalk ink. I think it allows the best coverage for these types of stamps and they work great on the acrylics too. I wanted the trees to have some type of foliage so I stamped the circular swirly image three times on the tree and then used my Copic Air Brush System and a Copic Marker to add some color. Love the results I got!! There was some blank space at the bottom of the card which needed some visual weight so I tied a ribbon around the card front, and then tied on the *hi* tag with gold cord. This little tag is a Spellbinder's Die Template from the Tags set. I love the shape of it and that you can emboss it too. It adds just enough dimension without adding too much detail. It cuts the holes for you too. For the rest of card, I used the SU! ticket corner punch, Basic Grey patterned paper and SU! Certainly Celery card stock for the card base. Tip of the day: Remember that Fall doesn't mean every card has to be Halloween themed (I need to remind myself of that because you KNOW how much I love Halloween!). So I like to keep a stash of cards that are Fall themed but that can be used all season. It's a good thing.

My blog banner? Someone asked how I created my new blog banner. I simply edited a photo to be long and skinny, and then used Adobe Photoshop to add my title....pretty much like a watermark really. My friend Bethie helped me with some HTML thing that I have NO idea about. Something that helped it spread across the top instead of distorting the photo. She's GOOD at that kind of stuff! Thanks Bethie!

October 2, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

The stamp of the month at Ellen's store this month is this pretty Indian Corn stamp. You get a jump start on your fall cards also by purchasing an entire kit to make the fun card Ellen has on her blog. My sample uses the Indian Corn stamp but I've chosen other supplies to show you how versatile this stamp can be. The card base paper is Vanilla Bean by Memory Box, other cardstock is More Mustard by SU! I stamped the SU! French Script background on the More Mustard cardstock in More Mustard ink. Polka dot patterned paper is by Basic Grey. Happy Thanksgiving sentiment is from Stampin' Up! also. The three little decorative pearls are Mocha color.

Now for the main image, I stamped it on Papertrey white cardstock then colored in with Copic markers. I love how I was able to color the teeny tiny individual corn kernels by using the sharp tip of the Sketch markers. I have my markers a ton and all of the tips are still very pointy..I love the great quality of Copics!! My image seemed pretty stark on the white cardstock so I used a trick I learned from Debbie Olson. I cut and embossed my image with a Spellbinder's rectangle die template. Then I left the metal die template on the image, turned it image side up and used my Copic Air Brush System to add some shading to the image. The cardstock stays snug in the die template so you can get a real crisp outline when airbrushing. I used a YR24 Pale Sepia marker and made sure to shadow the outside edges the most, leaving the area around the Indian Corn mostly white. I love the professional touch that this adds to stamped images. If you get an airbrush system, I highly suggest practicing with it lots and lots on scrap paper. Hold the airbrush tool different distances away from your image you want to airbrush and test the effects. For a fine, light mist hold the airbrush further away. For darker coverage, spray the airbrush closer in. Tip of the day: Have you ever thought about sending Thanksgiving cards to a few people instead of Christmas cards? I always thought it would be fun to select a few people on my Christmas list and send them Thanksgiving cards that have a list of the things I'm thankful for printed inside. You could also wish them a joyous holiday season. Dunno if I'll ever do it, but it's a thought....could save some time at the holiday hustle and bustle season.

Supplies from Ellen's store: Indian Corn stamp and Stamp of the Month card kit, Decorative Pearls, Copic Markers, Copic Air Brush System, Memory Box notecards, Spellbinder's Die Templates

Design Team News: Be sure to check out the home page of the Spellbinder's site to get all the details for the 2008 design team contest.
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