Floral Frenzy...ode to yellow

Just a note to start off the day to say I was again inspired by all the nice comments left on yesterday's quilting post. You all touched my heart and I vow that someday I will be a quilter!! Stay tuned for lots more quilting samples!!

On to today's project.......while working with the new Papertrey set called Floral Frenzy, I was inspired to do some daisies. I knew my yard was full of yellow flowers so I snapped a few photos for inspiration.

This bouquet was a centerpiece at my July 4th celebration, all flowers from around the house.
Here's some wild daisies out in the field next to our house.
And some yellow yarrow in the flower bed.
More wildflowers in the field.

And some new daisies that I planted in the flower bed this year. So cheery!
And then when I was all done snapping photos, I went back inside and saw this little cutie...all dressed in yellow. Who needs more inspiration than this??
So as I began to think about my project, I knew I wanted to make some white and yellow daisies. So I got out my acrylic paints and went to work. My friend Pine does the best stuff with paints, she inspires me quite often! I made simple daisies by painting my stamps with white and yellow acrylic craft paint.....found at Walmart, Michael's or any craft store.
I stamped quite a few different focal images, added my sentiments in black and then brushed yellow paint along all the edges of my cardstock. Here's what I had to work with when creating my projects. I added white polka dots too from the Polka Dot Basics PTI set. And by stamping the sentiments in black, they really popped off the cardstock. For the curvy sentiment on the left, I placed the straight sentiment all curvy like on my clear stamping block. Such a fun thing that you can do with clear stamps!

And here are my finished cards. I used PTI Kraft, White and Lemon Tart cardstock along with Lemon Tart ribbons and some buttons from my stash. Here's a card paired up with a notebook I created. LOVE the big polka dots from the PTI Polka Dot Basics stamp set. This would make such a nice gift and inexpensive to make too!
Here's a closeup of the ribbon detail ont the notebook. I just looped my ribbon around my focal image then added the buttons with sticky dots. I cut the ribbon into little notches, something I've been doing a lot of lately.
And here's the inside of my journal. I created a pocket to store a notecard or two. This is a junior size lined notepa.
Hope you enjoy! You can see the rest of my projects for this month's PTI release and all of the other wonderful creations from the PTI team at the Papertrey Ink Gallery.

I'm off to feed my girls and their two friends......*feed* my girls...like they're cattle or something. Perhaps I should say, I'm off to make breakfast for the girls. Nothing fancy.......*here's the bowls, here's the cereal, here's the milk!* Ha ha!! I'm bizzzzzzzzzeeee getting ready for CHA, no time for pancakes this morning!! I'll be heading out bright and early tomorrow to catch my flight from Kansas City. I'll schedule some posts so hopefully they'll all show up while I'm gone! Have a fun day everyone!!

Inspiration from Nichole

I can honestly say that I've never been quite so touched by the creation of a stamp set before until now. Nichole's new stamp set called Quilter's Sampler has really tugged at my heart strings. Nichole did not just say *here's my newest stamp set*, but instead she introduced us to a love of quilting and some inspiration to go along with it. I do not quilt (yet) but I have always admired my grandmother's wonderful quilts...I always look at them at the county fair....and have thought about how much I would some day like to create wedding quilts for my girls and a quilt for my own bed.....and one for the family room to snuggle in front of the fire place, etc. Quilts to me are a labor of love. There is so much hard work put into a quilt and it has to be one of the most precious gifts you could give or receive. My grandmother made me a pastel colored quilt and used crochet to sew all the pieces together. I'll have to find it at my mom's house and take a photo someday.

Along with Nichole's new stamp set, this Quilter's Apprentice post introduces us to some wonderful books that played a part in inspiring her new quilt stamp set and matching sentiment set(which is a must have!). You can click on the Elm Creek Quilts website HERE to see the entire listing of Elm Creek books, what they're about and possibly what order you might like to read them in. I've read the first three of the series and I'm hooked! The stories are about every day women, their personal stories and their love of quilting. Even if you're not a quilter, you will like these books....just good wholesome stories, kinda like a warm glass of milk before bed. They will totally inspire you to create your own quilts....or perhaps if you're not ready to take up quilting, you can follow my lead and make some wonderful paper quilted creations using Nichole's new stamp set. Thank you Nichole for creating these wonderful stamp sets and for rekindling my love of handmade quilts.

When I was searching for inspiration on quilt designs, I headed straight for my local quilt shop. The nice lady behind the counter kind of looked at me funny when I said I was looking for card inspirations but soon she understood. I showed her a few of my samples and the stamp set and immediately she had her own ideas. She had the great idea of using the *stamped by* and other images to actually stamp a fabric label for real quilts. I must go back and chat with those ladies more.....and I might even sign up for a beginner's quilting class this fall if time allows.

I didn't buy any fabric while at the quilt shop but I did find this pattern book with this beautiful quilt on the front cover. I want to make this quilt for my bed!! And I have those chairs around my dining room table. It's so ME!

After browsing through the pattern book, I discovered that there are 2" strips of fabric rolls all bundled together called *jelly rolls*. You purchase the bundle of pre-selected fabrics to create such pattern blocks in the photo below. That was my first source of inpspiration for some quilt cards!
I went to work over the weekend and cut my own tiny strips of patterned paper to resemble *jelly roll* strips. I used paper from Cosmo Cricket and also created a polka dot sample with PTI's Polka Dot Basics stamp set.
From there I went to work creating my own little quilted creations. The one thing I discovered while working with the Quilter's Sampler set is that I get this desire to make everything *homey*.....check out all the details on this close up shot of my cards.
I'm in love with these vintage-like, soft colored cards. I might have to keep them ALL!

If you look back up to the page with all the patterned blocks, you can pick out my inspiration for each card. Here, I was inspired by the long folk heart from the quilt. (Polka Dot Basics for the background, Kraft PTI cardstock, Cosmo patterned paper, Spellbinder's scallop rectangles, hand made felt heart with buttons)
I LOOOOVE the sentiments with this set too. They're almost as good as the little quilt blocks! This is the inside of my card....two more *jelly roll* strips to tie into the front of the card.
And this card was inspired by the pine tree pattern block from the pattern book. You can scroll back up to see it. Fun, fun, fun!
And my last card was inspired by the flower box from the pattern book. Again, scroll back up to see the photo. I created the flowers with felt and a big button. The quilt block stamps are intermingled in with blocks of patterned paper squares. Tip: The quilt squares punch out perfectly with a 3/4" square punch. You definitely need to add that to your next order!
Well, I've gushed on and on now about this little quilting craze of mine. I hope you are inspired as much as I have been by Nichole and her wonderful stamp set and her suggested Elm Creek Quilts books. I would love to hear about the quilter's in your life and/or wonderful quilts you have........and if you're going to purchase these new sets. Be sure to head to the Papertrey gallery for more Quilter's Sampler and Sentiments samples.

My latest quilt was acquired at a garage sale for $5 bucks. It's tattered and worn but I can never understand how someone could get rid of a hand made quilt. So I adopted this quilt and used it for my July 4th table settings. I love it as much as if my own grandma had made it!

Cupcake Birthday

EDIT: I thought you might like to see what JustRite Stampers is up to. There's LOTS of new products coming out. Be sure to scroll down a few posts to see the new goodies. I'll be doing a guest make and take session during CHA too, so be sure to stop by and see me! You can see my recipe card/apron project at the JustRite blog too. So cute!!

Today's card takes on a vintage look by using some distress ink on all the cardstock edges. For my main image, I used Karen Lockhart's Best Cupcake stamp layerd with scallop dies from Spellbinders. Patterned paper is by Fancy Pants and the polka dot layer was created with Papertrey's Polka Dot Basics stamp set. You'll notice that a lot of my cards have a horizontal element that grounds the main image. A horizontal piece of cardstock or ribbon under the main image gives the focal point something to rest on, like a horizon line. On my card today, I used three horizontal elements: a think strip of pink cardstock, a wider strip of green cardstock that has the *happy birthday* sentiment and the pearls, and then a piece of Sweet Blush ribbon from Papertrey Ink as the final horizontal element. I think all these little layers add a lot of creativity and interest to a project. So next time you have your card ready to assemble, cut a strip of cardstock and place it under the main image. You'll be surprised how much it adds to your project.

Today will be a lazy day, how about you? I drank a large McDonald's Vanilla Iced Coffee yesterday......was bouncing off the walls and doing great...til it was time to go to sleep. It was 4:30am the last time I checked before I fell asleep. Not good. But I can't help it, I love those iced coffees!!!!!!! Today it's water for me though! I hope you have a *sparky* kind of day today!

Crafty Secrets Soldered Pieces and Spellbinder's Winner!

Drumroll please. We have a winner of the Pinking Circle Dies from my Blog Party post. Congratulations to Katie Renz!! And thanks to all of you for visiting my blog!

Katie said this after being notified she was the winner:

I’m super excited to receive this set of new dies. I have been collecting all the nestabilities and am close to having ALL of them J This set will fit in perfectly with what I have. I honestly use my dies for cutting and embossing nearly every day. They are not only super easy to use but really add that something special to my cards.

I thought I would share some photos today of some of my first soldered pieces. I used some cut outs from Crafty Secrets booklets. The booklets make for some GREAT soldering artwork. You can check them out HERE.

This first piece shows the front and back of a bird themed soldered piece. I used this with all of my bird and nature decorations this spring.
And I thought this piece about family would be fun to hang off of a wreath, Christmas tree or perhaps a scrapbook album.
I am no where near the great soldering expert I would like to be. I still have LOTS to learn. I'm definitely going to be stopping by the Simply Swank booth at CHA this year to learn some more tips. They have a great line of soldering tools and have THE CUTEST samples at their booth. Be sure to add them to your list of booths to visit at CHA....and Crafty Secrets too. Sandy has lots of fun new stuff up her sleeve!

Lockhart Rosebud Cupcakes

Thank you all for the nice comments about yesterday's Spellbinder's post. I'm glad you all like the new Pinking Circle Dies. You have until midnight tonight to enter the drawing. Tomorrow I will announce the winner of the pinking dies right here on my blog. Be sure to check the blog party schedule to see what's coming up next!

Today I'm using Karen Lockhart's Rosebud Cupcake stamp. The rosebuds on the top of the cute cupcake liners make for fun cards. I stamped three of the images and colored them with Copic markers. I used birthday sentiments from the Papertrey Ink set called Birthday Basics. The smallest sentiment is layered with a circle and scallop circle from Spellbinders. I stitched around the main image with my sewing machine and then layered the card up with Papertrey Ink cardstock. Bottom scallops with the holes are made with a Fiskar's border punch. Ribbon is from Papertrey Ink. I love making pretty birthday cards. Birthdays are such a special day for that special someone. I think everyone deserves to be pampered on their birthday. And sometimes all it takes to make someone's day is a nice card...no gift required.

Spellbinder's Sneak Peek

There's a blog party going on at Spellbinders! Click on that link to read all about the two week celebration, celebrating the 1 year birthday of Nestabilities! Today, I get to show you some new dies being introduced at Summer CHA coming up soon. Be sure to check out the official rules at the end of my blog post for the Spellbinders Birthday Celebration Sneak Peek Party Drawing for the dies I'm showing today and for a chance to win the gihugic GRAND PRIZE of a new raspberry Wizard and $500 worth of Spellbinders dies!!

Today I will be featuring two new sets of dies.

Small Pinking Circle Dies (S4 172) MSRP $24.99
Largest die in this set measures 3-1/2" in diameter

Large Pinking Circles Dies( S4 170) MSRP $24.99
Largest die in this set measures 3-5/8" in diameter You can check out some great videos HERE! Stacey has demonstrated how to use Spellbinder's dies in other die cutting machines.

Now onto my projects for today featuring the new Small and Large Pinking Circles! I wanted to show you how verstatile the dies are for you projects. I first chose to use some of the smaller Pinking Circles as an accent for a card. When I first saw a photo of these dies, I immediately though of prize ribbons and emblem type projects. So my inspiration led to a blue ribbon pie! I used two sizes of Pinking Circles dies to create the round portion of the ribbon. I hand cut two longer pieces of cardstock to create the rest of the ribbon. I adhered this to my card as if it hand won first prize in a pie contest! Pie and polka dot stamps are from Papertrey Ink. Rectangle die templates from Spellbinders.

Next, I wanted to show you how one of the larger Pinking Circles can be used the focal image of a card. I paper pieced a Lockhart Apron with Cosmo Cricket patterned paper then outlined it with a grey Copic marker, plus some shading on the dish towel hanging out of the apron. I then adhered my circle cut main image to a large Pinking Circle die. The zig zag of the pinking pattern really helps the focal image to pop off the card. Polka dot stamps are from Papertrey Ink.

And lastly, I want to show you how the dies can be used as a card in itself. I folded a piece of cardstock and then ran it through my Wizard with a large Pinking Circle die, making sure that a portion of the fold hung over my template. This allows for the clamshell type card to still have a small fold for opening and closing. These types of cards would be great for little gift cards or perhaps a recipe could be printed up and adhered to the inside.

So however you choose to use the new dies, Spellbinders offers limitless possibilities to what you can create because there are so many sizes to choose from. And these particular dies nest perfectly with the regular circle dies too.

Here's a list of the 2008 Blog Party Schedule so you can check out all the other new dies arriving soon!

June 30: Thinking Inking by Debbie Olson -- http://debbiedesigns.typepad.com/muse_and_amuse/
July 01: Created From Paper by Jennifer Ellefson – http://www.createdfrompaper.blogspot.com/
July 02: Wickedly Wonderful Creations by Wendy Weixler – http://wickedlywonderfulcreations.blogspot.com/
July 03: Embellished Dreams by Heidi Blankenship Decorative Frames – http://embellished-dreams.blogspot.com/
July 04: Simple Dreams by Ellen Hutson -- http://www.ellenhutson.typepad.com/
July 05: Caffeinated Thoughts by Michelle Klomp - http://michellejoklomp.blogspot.com/
July 06: Linda’s Works of Heart by Linda Duke -- http://www.lindaduke.typepad.com/
July 07: Mish Mash by Michelle Wooderson – http://michellewooderson.blogspot.com/
July 08: Inky Heart by Sally Lynn MacDonald – http://www.inkyheart.typepad.com/
July 09: Cookies for Breakfast by Beth Pingry – http://bethping.blogspot.com/
July 10: PaperFections by Sharon Harnist – http://www.PaperFections.typepad.com
July 11: Today’s Creations by Holly Craft – http://todayscreations.blogspot.com/
July 12: Donya Schroeder by Donya Schroeder -- http://donyas.typepad.com/puckish
July 13: Follow Your Bliss by Trudee Sauer -- http://trudee.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/

Here's the official information for the:
Spellbinders Birthday Celebration Sneak Peek Party Drawing

Spellbinders will randomly pick one entry from each of the 14 Spellbinders Sneak Peek Blog reveals as stated in the "Rules". This name will be drawn to receive the die being revealed on said blog. These entries must follow all rules stated below to be valid for the drawing.

Entrants visiting all 14 Spellbinders Birthday Celebration Sneak Peeks Blog reveals and correctly entering their information into the 14 separate drawings, as described below, will automatically be entered into a GRAND PRIZE give away of a new RASPBERRY WIZARD and a $500 retail value die package!

Rules:
Any participant wishing to be included in the daily drawing for the Spellbinders Birthday Celebration Sneak Peek die give away must adhere to all of the following rules:

1. Participant must click on the provided drawing link on blog to enter each individual drawing on sneak peeks between June 30 and July 13.
2. Participant must type in the subject line the name of the die being revealed.
3. Participant must send their entry for this blog before 12:00 midnight Central Standard Time on July 8th, 2008
4. Participant is only allowed to enter each of the 14 Spellbinders sneak peek blog give away drawings one time per sneak peek. Participant must use the same email address daily to be considered for grand prize entry.
5. Spellbinders Design Team members and employees are not eligible for drawing.

Any participant wishing to be automatically entered into the drawing for the Spellbinders Birthday Celebration Sneak Peek Grand Prize drawing, must enter the drawing from all of the 14 blog reveals and follow all the above rules.

Please note:
*Spellbinders will only use email information to contact the winner.
*Spellbinders will not share this email address with any other parties.
*Spellbinders will not use this email information for advertisements or communications
other than to contact the winner.
*If you wish to be included in further communications from Spellbinders, please go to their homepage and sign up: http://www.spellbinders.us/.

Click HERE to enter the drawing. Good luck!!(If you use an e-mail client that does not work with this pop-up box, you may copy and paste this address to send your entry to: NewDierelease@spellbinders.us .) Winner of my dies will be announced July 9th!

If you would like to receive more Spellbinders product release information, please go to their homepage and sign up at: http://www.spellbinders.us/.

Summer Birthday

Sweet Summertime.....and today it's the aftermath of our huge party. We had 56 guests......today the guests are gone but we have the remains of their fireworks, sticky pop cans, bowls with sticky, melted homemade ice cream, dead June bugs all over the garage and FLIES! We had a GREAT time with all of our friends and we just finished up the cleaning, have our showers taken and are now in a vegetative state...scattered around on the sofa, beds and recliners. Whew, what a night! Eric decided to get a card game up with the leftover men so it was 2am before everyone left. Now it's just one more ball tournament to be done with and the summer is ours! I'll upload some photos of our party soon.

On to today's card. I love this Vintage Garden Chair stamp from Karen Lockhart. This is such a familiar scene around our house during the summer.....lawn chair, cold drink nearby and just relaxing. I thought this stamp would make perfect cards for summertime birthdays. The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink birthday set.
The *happy birthday* sentiment is acrylic so I curved it on my clear book so that it could follow the curve of my circular main image. Paper is from Ocotber Afternoon. Image was colored with Copic markers. Circle and scallop circles dies from Spellbinders. Machine stitching around the card front. For a fun twist, I added two scraps of patterned paper to the circle with the main image. I added ribbon to cover up the paper *seam* and then mimicked the angle with the placement of the floral background paper.

I hope your summer is going great! We're looking forward to days at my inlaws pool, maybe catch the American Girl movie next week and definitely some Sonic runs for Jordan's favorite Mocha Java Chiller and Josey's strawberry milkshake. I prefer Diet Cherry Limeades, yummo!! And it's almost time for me to head off to CHA. I can't wait to meet up with some of my friends and also meet some new people.

Have a great afternoon everyone! I think a good book and a nap are calling my name!

July 5th Party....Day 5 JustRite Stampers

Good morning and Happy July 4th and Happy Birthday to my Josey! Today is my 5th and final day as a guest stamper for JustRite Stampers. Below is a sneak peek of some monograms I made up for our July 5th party this year. I used some Papertrey stamps and computer generated text for some fun invitations. And there's polka dots too! You can check out all the details by clicking on the link HERE. I would like to thank all the nice folks at JustRite Stampers for having me as their guest. If you're going to be at CHA, please stop by the JustRite Stampers booth. I'll be doing a guest appearance for the make and take booth for a few hours on Friday morning. Be sure to stop by and say HI and see what's cookin' (that's a hint for the make and take!).
Do you have any big plans for today? We'll be celebrating Josey's birthday with a Dairy Queen ice cream cake and lighting some fireworks tonight. Tomorrow will be our big party! Hope you all have a great day and enjoy the independence that our wonderful nation offers.