Mini Desk Calendar

Okay, I couldn't stand not having MISH MASH at the top of my blog so picked a new template. It's a bad thing to give me choices sometimes because then I change stuff around all the time. Keeps ya on your toes though, huh?

Can you believe it's already February? Where does the time go anyway? I always have this excitement every time a new year rolls around because I get to make new calendars. Now this may be no big deal to some of you but I absolutely LOVE getting a new personal calendar and filling it out with all the important birthdays, school events, sporting events, doctor's appointments, etc. I guess it's that *office supply obsession* that I have. I KNOW there are lots of you out there just like me right. Please tell me there are some of you out there just like me, LOL!!

So I thought that I'd share some of my calendars with you this week. The one below is a little desk calendar that sits by my computer. I like having a calendar with just the dates on it for visual reference in case I need to make a note or see what day it is. This calendar is made just like a card. I cut my cardstock, fold like a regular A2 size card, add the little calendar and embellish just as I would a regular card. My mom picks these calendars up for me at little events she goes to with my dad. I think she scored a few for me this year at the farm show her and my dad went to a few weeks ago. Punches and ribbon are from Stampin' Up! The *save the date* sentiment is from a Stampin' Up! set called Mark the Date with a light stamping of the SU! background stamp called Form and Function over the top. Paper is from one of my favorite new companies called October Afternoon....I'm betting their stamps and paper lines will be HOT this year. Here's the way the calendar stands up straight without falling over. I simply cut a scrap of cardstock and scored it into thirds and attached to the inside card front and back. Easy peasy.

Now, I hope my calendar talk isn't boring you because I have a couple more posts of my calendar stuff for you yet this week. Let me know if you're a calendar lover like me, okay? How many calendars do you own? Have you switched to a BlackBerry or hand held calendar? Knowing me I'd love one of those too but couldn't bear to part with my paper versions so I'd have double of everything. More later, stay tuned.

Another Valentine Candy Stand Idea

I picked up these Valentine M & M's at Target and snipped open a little corner.....just to have a *few* little treats. Well then I HAD to package them up in treat containers or I would eat the whole bag!! So I took some of the Candy Stands Kits and made up two little gifts for my girls for Valentine's Day. I had these chipboard hearts from K and Company just begging to be used from my Valentine's Inspiration Station so I picked out two of the prettiest hearts and adhered them to Spellbinder's scallop cut ovals. Then I stamped the girl's names with Karen Foster Snap Stamps (discontinued, dang it!) I added white eyelets to the tags and tied to the Candy Stands with the fun polka dot ribbon that comes with the kit. You can see a close up shot of the tags below.
I just having these little Candy Stand treat holders on hand. I have to find some more candy/treats to put inside for some other gifts for teachers, friends and neighbors. Any suggestions on what to fill them with this time?

If you'd like to purchase any kits, they are still available at Ellen's online store HERE. Act quickly if you want to use them for Valentine's gifts so they can be shipped out on time. Enjoy!!

Crafty Secrets Preview!

Crafty Secrets is gearing up for another fabulous time at CHA. There are 11 new stamps coming out after CHA. One of the eleven new sets called Cherish is available now HERE. I have to say that these new sets are some of my all time favorites from Crafty Secrets. Cindy, the graphic artist for Crafty Secrets, has done a beautiful job of creating awesome new images and sentiments.

So this card below features 3 images from the Cherish set. The couple with the moon, the sentiment and the little flower bouquet to the side of the sentiment are all separate acrylic images. I colored the image in with Copic markers and then airbrushed the sky to be a pale purple. Patterned paper by Crafty Secrets. Be sure to zoom in on the Prima flower. I added droplets of Ranger Glassy Accents to resemble wet dew drops on the flower. Then I added some of Ellen's Dew Drops around the flower to resemble bigger water droplets. So pretty!! The two cards below feature some absolutely darling images from another new set being released after CHA called Sweet Kids. I just LOVE this set so much. There are lots of sentiments and smaller images to pair up with each main image which makes this set *all inclusive*.....you just need this one set to create fabulous projects. Notice that the smaller circle accents have small images that match with the bigger main image. I colored these images with Copic markers....you will want to RUN for your Copic markers when you see all of these new sets. They just BEG to be colored and airbrushed!! Background paper is from Crafty Secrets. And zoom in on the River Rock cardstock strip on both cards below. They were stamped with yet another new Crafty Secrets set coming out called Flourishes. Lots of swirls and twirlies that will make fabulous accents, borders and more!

If you are heading to CHA, be sure to check out the Crafty Secrets booth. Tell Sandy that I sent you looking for these three cards because I just mailed them off to her yesterday for booth samples. *Sniff sniff*, I was sad to see these cards go because I think they're so cute. Anywho, I'll be showing your more samples when the sets are available. I don't want to torture you too much with products that you can't purchase yet!! Hope you enjoy!!

Other supplies: Copic markers (check out Ellen's NEW colors), the Copic airbrush system and the Dew Drops can all be purchased at Ellen's online store. Eclectic Paperie sells the Crafty Secrets stamp sets.

Lockhart Pink Ovals

HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT: Spellbinder's has done it again! They will be debuting the brand new Excalibur motorized die cutting machine at CHA in February. Prices and shipping dates will be announced at CHA, shipping will begin around May 2008. I can't wait to try this out!!! No more cranking!!!!!!!!!!! Check out the post at Ellen's website HERE to read all about it!!



Also, thank you for your great response to my Sketch Book kit idea. I will be working on a kit to add to Ellen's store as soon as CHA is over. You'll love it!! As far as writing a book or selling my sketches.....hmm, you've really given me something to think about!! I'll have to ponder on that one!


Okay, now onto today's samples...............
Remember my Candy Stand Kits? A while back I did up some ovals showing you lots of options for stamps to use. Well, these cards are made from those little samples. This first one shows Karen Lockhart's baby Bib stamp, colored with Copic markers, airbrushed and blinged up with a few Dew Drops. Background paper is from Memory Box. This next cards uses one of my favorite Lockhart stamps, the stack of cupcakes called Best Cupcake. Again, colored with Copic markers, airbrushed and finished off with Dew Drops and a pretty green ribbon tab. Memory Box patterned paper.
And here's another Valentine card for my stash. I love the pink and brown combo on this one which features the Lockhart Folk Heart stamp, colored with Copics and airbrushed. I cut apart the stamped *be my valentine* sentiment and finished off the tag with pink Dew Drops. Patterned paper by Stampin' Up!
These cards showcase a fun way to build up your stash a little at a time. You can work in stages: stamp the images and cut them out, color them at a later time, assemble the cards at yet another stamping session. I do this a lot so that I don't spend all my time on making one card at a time. Having stamped and colored images ready to go is a very good time saving process. All of Karen Lockhart's stamps can be purchased at Ellen's online store, along with the Copic markers, Spellbinder's Nestabilities and Memory Box papers.

Rubber Soul Sketch Book Cards

I've got a ton of work on my plate right now so I needed some quick ideas. I reached for my handy dandy sketch notebook and these four cards came together very quickly, indeed. With each card, I've also shown my sketch layout that inspired the card. I highly suggest you create an idea notebook so that you can have some *go to* layouts for when you're pressed for time, need inspiration or just want to remember those layouts that you think are awesome. Would you be interested in a kit to make your own idea notebook? Let me know your thoughts.......

Now on to the cards. All of the images used on these cards are from Rubber Soul. Be sure to check out all the stamps in the Valentine/love section as there are some darling images and sentiments. I love this layout below because it uses two pattern paper designs. With all of the fun coordinating papers that companies are coming out with now, I love to mix and match papers from the same line. The paper for all these cards is from Cosmo Cricket. And aren't the bees just too cute? And I knew I just had to have this cake stand stamp and cupcake stamp. Cupcakes are all the rage, you see them everywhere! The cupcake on the right is cut out and raised up with a pop dot. The inside sentiment is shown on the wood stamp and says *have a delicious birthday*. That's a must have stamp for cupcake cards!
This is a favorite go to layout of mine because I love that you can add some type of embellishment at the top part of the card. I usually use buttons but the possibilities are endless. The two hearts on this card are separate wood stamps. I used Eclipse Masking Tape to mask the pink heart, then stamped the second yellow heart on top to create a layered look. Notice that I store my masks right on the wood stamp front. No need to cut a new mask each time.
This little honeybee is so darling! I kept the image and matting small and then used lots of patterned paper to add some vibrant color. Again, another layout that lets you use two paper patterns. Two gold brads secure the horizontal band in place.
For all the colored images, I used my Copic markers......have you seen that Ellen has new colors????? Heaven!! Well I hope you enjoy today's cards and my sketches. Where do I get my ideas for my sketches? I get ideas from card magazines such as CARDS and Paper Crafts, scrapbooking magazines such as Creating Keepsakes, idea books from companies like Stampin' Up!, Splitcoast and from my stamper friends. Many of my ideas are also my own originals. I like to keep my sketch book by my side or actually make sticky note sketches, then transfer them to my idea sketch book later. If you're like me, I know you have lots of ideas jotted down here and there and on the back of grocery receipts. But I bet when it comes time to stamp, you can't find 'em right? Create your own idea sketch book so that your ideas can be kept in one place. You'll love it, I guarantee. If you are interested in creating your own sketch book, I'm thinking of designing a kit for Ellen's store.......anyone interested?

October Afternoon Bella

Just a few Sunday afternoon cards for you. Girl image stamps are from Stamping Bella, lined notebook backgrounder is from Ellen's online store, Copic markers, Spellbinder's Die Templates. Patterned paper from October Afternoon, a new company I absolutely LOVE! Can't wait to send out some of these cards. The computer cards with the *I'm only a mouse-click away!* will be perfect for my online friends.

You can check out all of the Cornish Heritage Farms Backgrounder stamps at Ellen's store. She has them all and they are wonderful!!! I've got more coming soon so stay tuned!!

January Card Club

We had January Card Club last weekend. It was SUCH a fun time and all the ladies were really excited to be stamping again after the holidays. All stamps, papers and ink are from Stampin' Up!

I tried to make all the cards with two options....so that the gals could make them into Valentine cards or just regular greeting cards with different sentiment options.

Remember that one card I made for our anniversary a while back? I adhered to pieces of white cardstock to the inside of the card. One side was for my message to my husband, the other was for my husband to write a message to me. I love this type of card. My husband gets a break from card shopping and we both end up with a nice momento and hand written notes to each other. This version below is for our Valentine card to each other.
Love the paper on the card below, it's one of my new SU! favorites. And this is one of my favorite new card layouts. It went directly into my idea sketch book. That swirly flower background is just darling!!
The cards below are versions of the original cards....I love to use the leftover supplies for myself! My girls always love to make a card or two also.

And LOVE this bird from the Always set. This stack of cards below got all kinds of sentiments. They will make good February cards due to the Valentine-y colors.

Hope you enjoy!!

Introducing Riley the Moose!

Riley the Moose stamps are new creations from Hanna Stamps, available February 1st! Aren't they cute? Be sure to check out the new Splitcoast Stampers Hanna Stamps forum/gallery for even more cute cards made with Riley!. They are single stamps, wood mounted, excellent quality. All cardstock and patterned paper is from Stampin' Up!, Spellbinder's Nestabilities Die Templates, Copic markers, brads from Star Lit Studio. The *good stuff* sentiment from Creative Cafe, *happy st. patrick's* sentiment from Rubber Soul.


Also, be sure to check out the SCS Hanna Stamps forum this Friday, January 25th for Kristi's birthday bash celebration. There will be lots of give aways so join in on the fun!!