Flourishes Tuesday challenge -using vellum

Well, when I saw that my friend, Silke, was hosting this week's Tuesday Flourishes challenge (FLLC04) I knew I had to play along. Well, I try to play along each week, but made an effort for Silke!

And this card WAS an effort. The challenge you ask? TO USE VELLUM! Yick! This medium is so tricky to use. I stamped on it, which may have been my downfall. It seems like ink never dries on vellum and I must have had to do the stamping at least 4 times and had to redo my image 3 times cause of smearing -rolleyes!

This caused me great frustration and the card didn't turn out like I imagined, but it's done and I like the understated result. I used the Spring Ephemerals and Many Sentiments for this card. The DP is a piece of Ruby Stella by Basic Grey. You can tell in the pic, but I painted the flower blooms with Angel Wings Shimmerz.

Card Deets:
Stamps - Spring Ephemerals, Many Sentiments
Paper - Black, baroque burgundy, old olive, white, vellum and DP
Ink - Baroque Burgundy, old olive, black
Accessories - shimmerz, cuttlebug swiss dots EF, old olive grosgrain, black brads

Thanks for stopping by!

Some challenge cards

Happy Wednesday everyone! I have 3 challenge cards to share today.

The first card I uses Julee's FAB MojoMonday sketch found here, and is for my weekly DoubleDog Dare Challenge (DDC). This week my Dirty Dozen Roomie (that means we joined the Dirty Dozen together), Joan challenged us to use an image with a basket -any kind, AND some plaid paper. Hummm, seriously, I HAVE NO BASKET stamps of any kind. Not one! So I broke out my WishRAK image box and searched thru the entire thing -no baskets! What? Then I remembered my Crafty Secrets file and found that one of my Cotton Scraps HAD ONE! Whew! A baby girl image in a basket. And, what's even more perfect is that I need a baby girl card for Friday as one of the moms in my MOPS group just had her girl!

I sponged the white prima with pink and added Angel Wings Shimmerz to it. Here is a close up.

Card Deets:
Paper: pink pirouette, vintage cream (PTI), retired mint melody, misc plaid DP
Accessories: white prima, white dew drops, su scallope edge punch, small flower punch, swiss dots EF, shimmerz

This next card is for today's SCS sketch challenge. First let me say, I didn't really like it. I felt it a bit too top heavy and it was hard for me to find the right balance. But, I had some time to play and need to stock up on my Mother's Day cards for my Etsy store, so I fudged the sketch a bit and added brads at the bottom!

I used some of my Tres Jolie, Mon Cheri DP I got on clearance last year. The flower images are colored with Copic markers and have Stardust stickles on them. The sentiment is from Verve Stamps, Happy Thoughts (my all time fav sentiment set!).

For some interest, I strung some beads and a heart charm with silver cord and tied them with a bow from one of the panels. Silver cord and brads are from Pinkhedgehog Papercrafts, PrismPapers can be found here.

Card Deets:
Stamps: embrace life, happy thoughts
Paper: Vintage cream (PTI), Tres Jolie DP and Desert Coral Light Prismpaper
Accessories: copic markers, square punch, charm, beads, silver brads, stickles

And lastly, I have yesterday's SCS color challenge card that I paired with Crafty Secret's weekly challenge -which was to do a SINGLE LAYER card! Man, both were tough! The colors were Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie and Kiwi Kiss. I love those colors, just NOT together! I used the Baby Boy set from Crafty Secrets, some ribbon and buttons.

It's hard to see in the pic, but there are 3 scored lines below the ribbon.

Card Deets:
Stamps: baby boy
Paper: white
Ink: pumpkin pie, kiwi kiss
Accessories: score pal, square punch, stickles, buttons, grosgrain ribbon

Before I forget!! Jacksonbelle is offering up 2 jars of Shimmerz OF YOUR CHOICE as a prize! Check out the JBelle blog post here for the details!

Thanks for stopping by!

Celebrate Simply!

It's Tuesday and time for another Jacksonbelle Embellishments challenge! Nothing very official today, it's kind of a Free For All challenge with a lean towards the About A Boy line from Fancy Pants.

As always, everyone is invited to play along, and you don't need to have JBelle supplies to play. But if you don't have any, you can check out the store and see what strikes your fancy (get it Fancy Pants? LOL!).

I combined this challenge with SCS's new Monday challenge, the CAS challenge. Lately, I am really likin' the CAS style and am glad I stumbled onto this new challenge hosted by Jen! This weeks challenge was a sketch and you can find all the deets here. My card uses a piece of About A Boy, Chillin' DP with a tiny strip cut off and turned over. I then framed it in black and added a piece of pumpkin pie grosgrain ribbon. The sketch called for some kind of embellishment in the upper corner so I went with some Basic Grey buttons from the Granola and Ambrosia packs. The sentiment came from Inkadinkado's Birthday Cupcakes set. VERY simple card -hence CAS!! LOL!

Be sure to check out Lindsey's store, man oh man, she has the coffers FULL of new stuff! Lots of Inkadinkado, Basic Grey and Prima -yippee! If you play along, be sure to use the SCS keyword JBE041, so we can find all your creations. And don't forget to check out the other DT blogs for their cards!

AJ Otto--The Willow Garden
Beth Thomas--A Stampin' Good Time
Heather Lee-Reppen--Ink on my Ear
Jill Dunn--InkGenious
Jennifer Buck--The Buck Stamps Here
Kimberly O'Rosky--Sunshiny Days
Kisa Peters--Kisa's Paper Cuts
Lindsey Botkin--Embellished
Lynda Benden--Stamp Act
Maren Benedict--Zany not Crazy
Melissa Bove--Creating From the Heart
Rachel Baird--Hope Stamps Eternal
Shannan Teubner--Pink Tulle with Feathers and Sequins
Taylor Usry--Musings of an Addict

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget, there is still time to enter my Blog Candy giveaway. To enter to win, you must have a Cricut -you can enter here you have until noon (Pacific) today (Tuesday!).

Double challenge card with more rub-ons

Hi there! When I saw today's SCS limited supplies challenge was to use GREEN on your card I decided to continue using the rub-ons that were still on my desk from last night's set.

I used the Old Olive Love and Happiness pack (last year's SAB) and paired it with a touch of Pink Pirouette. What's up with me doing CAS this week? I am liking the simplicity of doing CAS cards. You may see a bit more of this kind from me :-) Maybe I am channeling Silke -LOL!



The sketch I followed was this week's sketch from Amy Rysavy. I love her weekly sketches, but rarely have time to play. Today I fell in love and HAD to incorporate it with my LSC card. Thanks Amy!


Don't forget to enter for my blog candy if you own a Cricut! You can enter at this post here.
Also, there is a SUPAH big sale going on at Verve's store. She is making room for the next release in March -which, if I do say so myself, is AMAZING!
AND, Lindsey has some amazing new Inkadinkado, Prima and Basic Grey stuff in the store!
Card Deets:
Stamps and Ink: none
Paper: pink pirouette, old olive, white, old olive DSP
Accessories: rub-ons pack, pink bling, pink ribbon, corner rounder

Fun with Bright Delight

Hey! I don't know what happened... just talking about the loss of my mojo (see post below), brought it back! Whew!

I decided to see what would happen if I busted out the brand new SU! Bright Delight Rub-ons and make a set of CAS cards with them. I wanted to see how many cards I could make using one sheet. I made a good 5 and have some bits and pieces left. You may notice the large tree image is missing (the reason I bought them -by the way), don't ask, I had a rub-on disaster and it got ruined. Thank heavens there are 2 sheets!

I just love these! The colors and images are so fun. Here are close up pictures of each of the 5:

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to enter my Blog Candy if you have a Cricut!! See this post to enter.

Card Deets:

Stamps and Ink - none

Paper - Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip, Tangerine Tango,

Accessories - Bright Delight rub-ons, choc chip taffeta ribbon, hardware, some bling, corner rounder

Jacksonbelle Tuesday Challenge

Hi everyone, today is Tuesday and that means another Jbelle challenge! This week's challenge is to CASE my fellow JBelle Rockstar Kim O'Rosky! WooHoo! A couple weeks ago you all were challenged to case me, this week it's Kim's turn! AND be sure to check out the tutorial she wrote! It is up on the Jacksonbelle Blog. Everyone is invited to play along. You don't need to have JBelle supplies to play, but if you don't have any, you can check out the store and see what strikes your fancy -Lindsey just got TONS of new PRIMA and INKADINKADO stuff!


To play you can go to Kim's SCS gallery, find a card and CASE it -which means to use it as your inspiration and change a couple things to make it your own. Be sure to use the SCS keyword JBE040, so we can find all your creations. I chose this card to case. I kept the same image and layout and changed the papers, sentiment and made the card A2 size instead of square.

The image is from Inkadinkado, Birds Galore and the papers are October Afternoon, Weather Vane -Chilly Morning. For those of you not familiar with OA designer paper, it rocks! Thick and double sided... Yum LOVE it! Anyway, the owl is embossed with Chocolate EP and I colored his little tummy with Copic markers. The bling on the branch was my version of Kim using stickles. The sentiment is from PaperTrey Ink's Birthday Basics.

The 1/8" organdy ribbon is from Pinkhedgehog Papercrafts. I just got the 5 yard bundle, there are 41 colors -you read right, 41 colors!! Talk about heaven. Here is a picture of them all on that I threaded on the ribbon rings!!

Don't forget to check out the other DT blogs for their Kim inspired cards!

AJ Otto
Heather Lee-Reppen
Jennifer Buck
Jill Dunn
Kisa Peters
Lindsey Botkins
Lynda Benden
Melissa Bove
Rachel Hope
Shannon Teubner
Taylor Usry

Card Deets:
Stamps - Birthday Basics, Birds Galore
Paper - PTI Brown, Kiwi Kiss, October Afternoon DP
Embellishments - blue bling (Kaiser crafts), 1/8" organdy, Copic markers, chocolate EP, Labels One nesties

A 6x6 storage idea and some early Mother's Day cards

***This old post from 2009 is getting lots of views and I am getting questions. I no longer store my 6x6 paper pads in these Sterlite cubes. I now have a new craft space and have the IKEA Kallax system.****

I store many of my paper pads and other items I'm working on in organizers from Scrapbook.com. They have a ton of sizes and I have several around my craft space. I especially love this size of the Medium Organizer.

But first, my friend Sharon (notimetostamp) posed the question to everyone "how do you store your 6x6 paper pads?" on this blog post. So, I thought I would share my new system. It's NOT perfect, but it works for me and my TINY stamping space. I have about 1/2 of my paper pads moved over and I like it so far!

I keep a stack of plastic CD cases behind my chair (I just don't skootch back very fast!). They measure 6" deep, 7 1/2" tall and 8" across. They fit my Basic Grey 6x6 pads very nicely. Along with lots of other stuff too! What I do is put the entire pad in with the "spine" side down and then I toss the scraps (which I save them ALL) in just behind the cover page. I suppose you could get fancy with some tabs with the name of the pads, but I just thumb thru looking for a specific color or pattern to fit my card. I kind of have the order of the pads memorized!

I have them stacked 5 boxes high, and that seems the limit. They are pretty sturdy, no tipping and I even have them on carpet. They interlock with each other and I suppose if you anchored them to the wall somehow they could be stacked even higher. I got them at Fred Meyer's (it's a West Coast store) for around $2 each. I imagine you could find them at Target, K-Mart or the like.

I also store my Nesties here too. I keep each set in a CD case attached with magnetic strips. I color coded the spine for my Circles, Ovals and Rectangles. This has been a huge plus!

I hope this helps some of you who are looking for some ideas. EDITED TO ADD: The containers are made by Sterilite #1695.  -they can be found online at Ebay, Amazon.com, and other places. Good luck!

Now on to some Mother's Day cards. I have been inspired to use corsage pins and beads to make a version of the SU! Pretties kit. Way back when, I dabbled in making jewelry and like a true scrapper, I saved all my beads! So, I bought a set of corsage pins, some earring stoppers and got to work.

I made 3 versions of the card -pale plum, bashful blue and pink pirouette. The sentiment is Happy Thoughts from Verve and the BG stamp is Damask from Flourishes (on the blue and plum cards). I used some yellow pearls from Kaiser Craft for the center of the flower.

Here is a picture of all three! Thanks for stopping by and have a great Friday!

Card Deets:
Stamps – Heartfelt Thanks, Happy Thoughts, Damask
Paper - white, black, pale plum, pink pirouette, bashful blue
Accessories - paper piercer, yellow pearls, yellow stickles, black satin striped organdy ribbon and Michelle's version of the Pretties kit!

Timeless Tuesday challenge

This week's Flourishes Timeless Tuesday challenge is to use buttons. Wellll, not so much a challenge -LOL!

Seriously, my button addiction is truly out of control. Not only do I have hundreds of vintage buttons from my granny, I have a ton from Tres Jolie, Basic Grey and of course from Heidi, week's Pinkhedgehog Papercrafts! I just love to look at them, set them all out... it can take me an hour just to pick out a single button for a card! I am thinking I HAVE to use buttons more on cards! P.S. I do use buttons on my scrap pages.

This card uses the main flower image from Flourishes Siberian Iris set. I embossed it with Copper EP and watercolored it. OK, don't laugh -I am NO Jerri Kay or Christine, but I tried. After I watercolored it, I painted the entire flower with Angel Wings, Shimmerz. To continue with a copper theme, I used some copper paper I have been hording (from The Paper Zone) and I used some copper pearls (from Kaiser Craft). I also embossed the edges of the top note piece to break up the solid white feel of it. Here is a close up of the button.

Here is a picture of the inside of the card.

I really wanted to use some tan colored buttons with flower detailing on the card -which REALLY matched the copper paper, but just couldn't make it work! But, I put them in the "supplies" picture so you could see how lovely they are (click on the picture to enlarge for the details). They just don't make buttons like that anymore! I settled on a lovely pale plum colored button and used SU Pale Plum paper to match. The striped organdy ribbon is from Pinkhedgehog Papercrafts.

This card will go to Bill's mom for Mother's Day -he already put "dibs" on it!!

Thanks for stopping by. I am off to have a girls afternoon with Heidi (pinkhedgehog) and Shirley (squirrelly shirley) for some stamping and to see He's Just Not That In To You!!

Card Deets:
Stamps: siberian iris
Paper: white, pale plum, copper
Ink: versamark, pale and perfect plum, celery and wasabi
Accessories: copper EP, niji watercolor brush, organdy, top note die cut, swiss dots EF, button, copper pearls

Jacksonbelle Tuesday Challenge

Woohoo! Today is Jacksonbelle Embellishments Tuesday challenge and it's a SKETCH! My favorite kind of challenge. Everyone is invited to play along. You don't need to have JBelle supplies to play, but if you don't have any, you can check out the store and see what strikes your fancy. Everything in the store is on sale 30% off until midnight Tuesday!! Just use code Feb30 at checkout!

My card uses the fabulous Webster Pages Classical Garden collection (Full Bloom). You may know from yesterdays post that I was asked to make 10 sympathy cards for my attorney. I loved the great chocolate and vanilla paper!! I took a couple Copic markers and colored in the leaves on the paper and then did some really small framing with Certainly Celery to add a splash of green to the card. The flowers are from a couple Prima jars and the green pearl is from Kaiser Crafts. The sentiment is from Verve's Plain Jane Comfort and is embossed with Chocolate brown EP.

Here is a close up picture. If you play along, be sure to use the SCS keyword JBE038, so we can find all your creations. And don't forget to check out the other DT blogs for their cards!

AJ Otto

Heather Lee-Reppen

Jennifer Buck

Jill Dunn

Kisa Peters

Lindsey Botkins

Lynda Benden

Melissa Bove

Rachel Hope

Shannon Teubner

Beth Thomas

Taylor Usry

Card Deets:

Stamps - Plain Jane Comfort

Ink - versamark

Paper - Vanilla Cream, chocolate chip, celery, DP

Accessories - choc chip taffeta ribbon, green pearls, prima flowers, copic markers, labels one nesties

Some challenge cards, a discovery and a story

My favorite challenge, SCS Featured Stamper challenge was yesterday and I had a chance to play -a bit late, but I didn't want to pass it up. The featured stamper was k dunbrook. I am new to her gallery, but it is full of really lovely cards. Lots of embellishments and nestie cards. Just beautiful!!

I chose this card to case. I just love how she used the nesties and die cutting DP!! I just had to use my Labels One dies!! I changed the DP used, image, the layout slightly and omitted the oval sentiment panel. My card uses Verve's Plain Jane Comfort and my loved, but NEVER used Bella Rose DP! I painted the red cardstock with Angel Wings for some extra sparkle.

Now on to my second card. This card is for this week's challenge at Crafty Secrets - to make a birthday card in honor of thier having 2 years of challenges!!I used a sticker from their Vintage Stickers collection. LOVE these -so pretty and makes for quick cards!! The patterned paper is actually made from the CHF Pretty Pattern backgrounder. The cardstock and ribbon are from PTI. Oh and do you recognize the sketch? It's PTIs Bitty Dot Sketch from yesterday. I loved it so much I cased my card!!

Oh and I discovered something!! You all may have known before, but I discovered you can color pearls with Copic Markers!! Check out the pearl stamens on this card. They came from the wedding section of Michael's and come in white. I colored them purple and yellow for this card!! Yahooo!


Lastly, I'll share a story, Bill and I finally got a will done. Yep, our oldest son will be 5 (in one week) and we never got a will done- EEK! So my sister referred us to an attorney and last week, we signed everything!! Wellllllll, I mentioned to him that I made cards. He was interested in seeing my work, so I brought him some samples when we signed the papers. He loved them and ordered 10 sympathy cards to keep on hand for his special clients. So, I guess you will be seeing sympathy cards from me this week -LOL! Anyway, DON'T be shy about showing your cards around. You never know who will be interested, and it's a great way to make a little pocket change!! I made enough for a small SU! SAB order!!

Card Deets (FS card):
Stamps: Plain Jane Comfort
Paper: black, ridinghood red, white, bella rose DP
Ink: black
Accessories: swiss dots EF, taffeta ribbon, labels one nesties, black accents, MS branch punch, shimmerz

Card Deets (CS card):
Stamps: pretty pattern BG
Paper: lemon tart, plum pudding, white -all PTI
Ink: perfect plum
Accessories: plum brads, pearl stamens, plum pudding satin ribbon

Papertrey's sketch challenge

WOW! Have you all seen the wonderful goodies being released by PTI this month? All the sneak peeks and challenge deets can be found here.

This card is for the Itty Bitty Dots sketch challenge. To one lucky winner, a spool ALL the ribbons PTI sells!! What?!? BE STILL MY HEART!

Are you kidding me? Their entire ribbon collection? If I won all of those, I would throw them in the tub and roll around in 'em. Of course, I would have to wait for my DH to be at work, so he wouldn't have me COMMITTED! LOL!

This card uses the super cute Fairest tree from Imaginisce and the sentiments are from PTI Birthday Basics -which, IMHO is the best birthday sentiment set out there! The DP is PTI's Pink Patterns and the ribbon is their Twill in Berry Sorbet. Did you notice how the brads are an exact match? Heidi (Pinkhedgehog Papercrafts) has brads custom ordered to match all the SU colors -the one that matches Cameo Coral matches Berry Sorbet!!

OK, please ignore the horrible coloring of the tree. That's what I get for making this card l;ast night at 10:30PM!!!

Here is a pic of most of the supplies I used.

Card Deets:

Stamps - Fairest Tree, Birthday Basics

Paper - Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet, white

Accessories - copic markers, coral brads, PTI ribbon, swiss dots EP, stickles